没时间读完的朋友，简单总结就是导演说了，结尾是happy ending，不是loop，兄弟俩逃出生天。

http://collider.com/the-endless-explained-interview/

‘The Endless’ Filmmakers on Their Trippy Mythology & Deciphering That Ending

This week, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead‘s The Endless rolls out on Blu-ray and digital, which means that folks nationwide are going to be unravelling the headtrip horrors of the film’s unnerving, mysterious Lovecraftian mythology and looking for some answers.Earlier this month, I published the first part of my conversationwith the filmmaking duo, which spanned from the duo’s early ideas for expanding the universe they built in their first film, Resolution, to the experience of taking the finished versionThe Endless around the world. And now that the movie has hit more theaters, it seems like a good time to serve up the spoilery portion of the interview, which dives into what to make of the film’s mysterious mythology and ending.

If you need a refresher, The Endless follows Benson and Moorhead as Justin and Aaron (yes, they’re using their real names, but no, they’re no playing themselves), a pair of bickering brothers always at odds who return to the UFO death cult they escaped as kids in search of answers. Except when they get there, they don’t find a UFO death cult at all, but a happy and healthy, if admittedly weird and unsettling, commune of people living life on their own terms. They also find something more sinister lurking in the hillsides of the remote camp — an unseen, oppressive presence that communicates through voyeuristic photographs and video clips, trapping people in time-loop prisons where it manipulates and torments them into various horrific fates for its own amusement. A frontiersman trapped in a loop of mere seconds, a man who has to kill himself every few minutes to prevent a worse fate, and the local cult, who have it relatively easy by comparison — living out a decently long three-moon loop that ends with their “ascension,” aka being shredded into bloody bits. Yikes. At least they don’t have to worry about aging.

Image via Well Go USA

And of course, there’s the return of Mike (Peter Ciella) and Chris (Vinny Curran) from Resolution,who are trapped in the bitter week-long loop of forced sobriety and failing friendship detailed in the 2002 film. The unseen evil in The Endless is the same chilling cosmic threat we met in Resolution, and the films share more crossovers thanyou’d probably imagine on a first watch, so you’re looking for more answers on The Endless, a rewatch of Resolution is the perfect place to start. Or first watch if you caught The Endless first, which works just as well.

However, if you’re looking for an easy play-by-play explanation of what goes down in the film, you’re not going to get it from Benson and Moorhead, who insist everything you need to solve the puzzles of their unconventional cinematic universe can be found right there on screen. However, the duo was more than happy to dive into the ideation behind the film’s mythology and the mindset behind ending it the way they did, so check out the interview below for a discussion of the different ways their “monster” is revealed through the characters and settings in the film, the ideas that helped inspire the unseen menace, and why the ending is more about character payoff than answering specific questions.

I know you guys have said you have this whole mythology totally down from top to tail. Was that something that you had already achieved at the time ofResolutionor did that come later?

JUSTIN BENSON: It’s definitely expanded.

AARON MOORHEAD: The rules didn’t change.

BENSON: But like withResolutionthere were … In both of these movies, there have been massive documents of things that people never see. And it’s really cool because we’re pretty sure people feel these things in the movie. The things that are into that. But like in the case ofResolution, for example. The unseen antagonist ofResolution, which is the same unseen antagonist inThe Endless, obviously. Except inResolution, the point of view of the whole film is from the unseen antagonist. There was like a massive document that went into everything about that “monster” that went to our sound designer to help them design the sound of the whole film. So that existed duringResolutionand there are things in that document that ended up more conspicuous inThe Endlessthan expanded upon. That’s just like one example of one thing.

When it comes to how nailed down the mythology is… Whenthe camera pulls back on that canyon and you see all those bubbles, the time prisons, would you be able to look at that shot and say exactly what’s happening in each one of them?

Image via Well Go USA

MOORHEAD: I can tell you how long those loops are, when they reset, and all of that. That exact area, we know it pretty well. And that’s desert, so there’s a whole bunch of poor animals. It’s probably something like that, but I wouldn’t say that we have an entire map of the world and who’s in it. But it wouldn’t be hard to theorize. We definitely have enough. So it would be pretty easy to take a good gander. And then, the little sequence that — the music trimmings for the montage that follows Justin and Aaron walking past the big totem and it’s in the sort of monolith carved monster looking thing.

BENSON: The rusty dragon sculpture.

MOORHEAD: And the rusty dragon sculpture. So those would all be individual loops that have developed their own sub-cultures and have their own interpretation of what this unseen antagonist is. Depending on how they saw it, the state of mind they’re in, and their own personalities, and all of that. And that these things they’ve created are artistic representations of how they see the antagonist. Whether they’re going specifically through the loop you see in the distance, because they do walk off, that we don’t know. And luckily, we only shot in 4K so you can’t really punch in. [Laughs]

BENSON: And what’s funny is … it’s weird how important that sequence was to us because in the movie we basically, the oldest loop that you ever see is what, 1800 something? Some kind of frontiersman like in a tent, but we have a non-existent Easter Island type subculture that developed its own kind of mythology around it. Clearly. And of course, Native Americans with the totem pole. But even the monolith to us — which is kind of the big image of the film anyways — to us. it’s supposed to scare the hell out of you when you realize that’s what that is. When you realize that, that’s the antagonist of the film as seen by people that are so ancient they’re gone in America.

In a similar vein, along with those monoliths I loved the ways we see this presence interpreted through the eyes of the characters in the film, like Lizzie’s art and Hal’s equation. What was your process of creating all these different understandings of this one being?

MOORHEAD: I mean, that’s something that did start with Resolution but it’s so small. It’s so small. It’s like literally there’s a journal running during the credits sequence of Resolution. It’s a bunch of monster sketches, and that would have been what the French researchers in Resolution were seeing it as. So that goes way back. I don’t even remember anymore what the inspiration for that was. Besides the fact that, unless you can get Giger, the guy who did Alien, unless you have a designer on that level to build a monster … We’re just trying to figure out ways that we can present it visually when we need to at least hint at something and not just show nothing, always. And in this case, we get to show it through sketches, and through sculptures, and things like that.

Image via Well Go USA

In the case of Spring, we showed a monster because the premise alluded to nature as being our designer. And since we don’t have our own Giger, we come up with these, hopefully interesting, clever ways to show an otherworldly being or “monster” and it won’t be really uneventful.

I mean if you wanted to pour a glass of wine, on a dark night and think about it. There’s this idea of every civilization has developed an idea of a deity and a God. And their interpretation of it has trickled down into our religions today. Or died out. But in the same way, their visualizations of it have looked so wildly different. And a lot of the time there’s the idea that … There’s two ideas. One is, what if it’s the same thing? What if they’re all the same thing? Of course, unified religion theory, which is kind of an idea that we play with. But we’re merging it with the idea of, what if wasn’t God? What if it was just a monster? Or what if people with porphyria were seen as vampires? You know, that kind of an idea where it’s like, “Oh, there’s nothing metaphysical about it.” Obviously, our movie’s metaphysical. But what if it was a natural phenomenon that people just tried to interpret as a god. And that’s a lot of what we’re talking about with this; they saw it as God and it’s actually just this thing.

BENSON: And as you saying that, I just remembered where it comes from. It comes from … This is a deep cut. There’s a guy named John Keel, who’s the guy who wrote The Mothman Prophecies. The book is very different from the movie. It’s not a fictional narrative. It’s sort of a journalist’s account of what happened in an area over a period of time. He wrote a whole collection of other books. The one that I’ve read is Our Haunted Planet and what it’s basically about is this concept of ultra-terrestrials.

I’m not saying it is an ultra-terrestrial in this movie, but the idea is that throughout human history whenever human beings saw something and interpreted it as being like, “Oh, I saw something. That was an angel from the bible.” Or, “That was a demon.” Or, “That was an extraterrestrial being.” “That was the Men in Black.” “That was the Mothman.” Whatever. That it’s actually always the same thing. In his case, he was arguing that it was this thing called an ultraterrestrial. That just basically, something that had been here among us, always manipulating the situation and everyone just seeing it differently depending on their culture. So it’s vaguely where the idea comes from. If you could imagine, there are so many species that we haven’t yet cataloged in the Amazon. Things like that. Imagine if there’s like an enormous blind spot that we just completely missed; one really big thing. Again, that’s not what’s in The Endless but it’s that idea.

I do have one very specific question. Are we meant to interpret at the end where we see the image of two cars coming into a collision, that it has anything to do with the car crash that put them there in the first place?

MOORHEAD: No.That’s an interesting one where we realized that was an unintentional thing. About 10% percent of people, they’ll kind of have that question of like, “Do they?”

When I watch Resolution andThe Endless back to back, something I had not picked up the first time was, they seem almost opposite ending moments. Resolution ends on a feeling of helplessness and being trapped and The Endless is all about breaking free. Was that intentionally designed for those two endings to be on opposite ends of the emotional spectrum?

MOORHEAD: Oh, that’s funny. I’m going to give you a yes and no. I think afterSpring, we got addicted to optimistic endings. I think we realized that we are just optimistic people and saying like, “You’re fucked no matter what” is just not our feeling about the way that life is, or at least the message that we want to put out into the world. And also, frankly, it more comes down to the construct of The Endless where, if you’re talking in really broad terms about the movie. If you’re talking about the fact that it says, “Break out of your cycle or be doomed to repeat history forever.” It seems like we should be showing what it looks like to break out of your cycle. And like, “Does that help you?” I don’t think it’s a moral as much as it’s an exploration of it. Because there are people that do enjoy it inside their cycle. I mean, the cult at the end. And you don’t even feel bad for them. A little bit, but it’s more melancholy. It’s like, “Oh. They kind of enjoy it there.” But I think that it would have been untruthful for ourselves if we’d ended it as dark as Resolution had ended.

BENSON: Yeah. It just seemed like we know, yes there is a very literal answer to the movie. And the answers in the film…It may take a few viewings, but everything’s very literal and all the evidence, if you want to call it that, is there. In terms of, where’s the movie ending in the sense of the supernatural, and otherworldly, and the sci-fi aspects, and all that.

But the thing that’s definite, that’s there, that was the most important to us, was just that you’d see that there was a transformation in the interpersonal relationship between these two brothers. And that you’d see that transformation in just a really understated gesture. And that the emotional satisfaction should come from that. I think anything else beyond that, we do things stylistically to kind of like poke the mystery part of people’s brains a little bit. One example is that it’s a hard cut going out. Things like that where just like you sit there and you go, “Oh, wait. There’s another piece of the puzzle to figure out.” To think about longer. It’s things like that. But there’s definitely one answer to the sci-fi part of it.

MOORHEAD: Actually going back to your questions, I just remembered when you said, “People who have viewed the movie multiple times.” There’s something that’s an interesting thing we’ve realizes. Our movies kind of exist in what people have called a Lynchian sort of universe where just things are a little off and all of that. I hadn’t seen almost any Lynch when that comparison started, but what’s interesting is, all of the answers to the movie are, I promise you, they’re in the movie. They are there. It’s not a dream logic situation. We’re not being deliberately obtuse. We just want to tell a mystery that’s got a lot of depth to it. And we just don’t want to lay it all out on the table but they’re in there. If you think about it long enough and hard enough. And you know, you might have to take a couple of, not leaps of logic but leaps of faith that like, “Okay. That is what they meant.” Something like that. But our movies are meant to be, I guess literal. That might be the word for it. They are meant to be telling a full story.

尝试解释影片的前因后果，但感觉很多地方都会矛盾，很难自圆其说。就像片中的营地男子所说的，他自己也无法解释到底发生了什么。

首先录影带、照片这种BUG物品先放一边，它们用上帝或导演的视角都解释不通。

1循环区域

片中的循环类似于电影《土拨鼠日》，但本片在同一地区出现了若干不同的时空循环区域。这些区域类似于平行空间，不同区域的人并不能互相看见。诡异的是这些区域的循环周期也不相同。比如帐篷里的老头每隔5秒就经历一次从死到生的循环。虽然他拥有了永生，但更像是永世不得超生。这一幕的确令人震撼。令人想到古代神话里月亮上的吴刚，永远陷在砍树的死循环里。

从已知的几个循环来看，5秒钟的帐篷老头，3小时的上吊男，时间未知的自焚男（感觉周期也不会超过1天），循环周期结束时，对应空间内所有物体会重置，空间内的人会被杀死，而且死得很惨。随后会重生，但人的记忆会保留，所以这些经历过重置的人宁愿上吊甚至自焚来逃避更惨烈的死法。这个设定的矛盾是，当营地重置时，那个带锁小屋里的录像带并不会重置，以至于保存了很多以前的录像带（归根到底这些录像带及照片都是BUG物品）。

2.惯性记忆

只有5秒的老头为什么每次都要朝同一方向冲去。我觉得他可能最初有个起身冲的想法，这个想法在他被重置时仍然保留了下来，以至于他在这5秒生命里惯性地重复着这个动作，事实上他也可以冲向其他地方。这样就可以解释为什么吸毒男和自焚男被重置后每次见面的台词都一样。也是记忆的惯性。

3.到底过了多少年

如果能和5秒老头交流，他对时间的概念一定是最薄弱的，因为他的时间完全被碎片化了，而自焚男认为他自己只被困了几个星期，实际上他十年前已经认识男主了，他的时间误差也很巨大。然而上吊男虽然看上去暴躁无脑，他的时间却是精准的，他知道男主是十年前离开的，并且很准确地说这一切是从09年开始的。而当前最晚算18年的话，十年前就是08年，也就是说在男主至少离开一年以后，上吊男陷入了3小时的死循环。

而5秒老头以及自焚男这些死循环也应该是在男主带着弟弟离开以后发生的（或是刚刚发生），因为过程太诡异了。当时年幼的男主如果见到他们不可能没有印象。

4营地的循环

而营地的循环开始时间就不那么好判断了。如果按照小屋内的录像带年份来看，循环早在兄弟俩被救到营地之前就开始了，而且周期比较长，在兄弟俩小时候逃离营地时还没重置。按这种算法，营地的人甚至可能是20-30年代的人，那重置时的服装应该是古老的样式，然而片尾那些刚刚重置的人们衣服仍然是现代样式。

抛开录像带从另一角度看，这里先从和自焚男同一时空的吸毒男说起，吸毒男和上吊男是一起玩枪的朋友，他认为自己一年前还和上吊男有来往。而上吊男09年开始就陷入循环，之后不可能接触到其他人了。那么吸毒男所在空间的年份最迟也就是10年左右。他和自焚男最迟在10年就陷入了死循环。而自焚男却觉得只是过了几个礼拜，只能说他的循环周期要小于几个礼拜，实际上要远远小于，可能只能按小时算或更短，导致他对时间也没什么数。而营地里来了自焚男的妻子，这个妻子不可能如她所说刚来营地找丈夫，因为丈夫早在10年左右就失踪了。所以她来营地的时间应该也是10年左右。（而此时男主已经离开，两人不认识也很合理）。而她不可能找丈夫找个七八年，她觉得自己才找了几个礼拜。所以营地的周期也就不会超过几个礼拜。而循环开始的时间是男主带着弟弟离开以后。

所以，如果抛开录像带及照片这些无法调和的矛盾。故事的脉络可以是这样的。

营地最初生活着一群有共同宗教信仰或生活理念的人。有一天他们救了两个发生车祸的小男孩，之后两个男孩就留在了营地生活。随着时间的推移几年以后，营地渐渐变得奇怪。发生了诡异的事情。大点的男孩感到害怕，带着弟弟离开了营地。之后营地出现了3个月亮，所有物体重置，其中的人们陷入了各种循环中，后面来了一个寻找丈夫的妻子，然而不久在营地再次遭遇重置，这个妻子也陷入循环。两个男孩在十年后回到营地，发现营地的人还像十年前一样年轻，两天后营地又将开始重置。。。

神秘，诡异，无解，压抑，释放。幻觉，现实，愉悦，悲伤，希望，绝望。麻木，激情，幻想，沉默，骄傲。浮躁，冷静，忧郁，踌躇，不安。渴望，欺骗，谎言。科幻，奇幻，恐怖，悬疑。焦灼，思索，无奈，无力。奇妙，危机，逃离。开始，冗长，后来，有戏。沉闷，互动，有趣。烧脑，探索，解题。神奇，友谊，创造，挑战，奇迹。

无尽，Endless。要怎么解释呢，是魔幻的Loop圈，还是残酷的现实人生。

关于神秘的cult组织

电影的背景是做着清洁工工作的兄弟二人，收到了一盒神秘的录像带——原来是是10年前他们曾经逃离的cult camp寄来的录像，向观众揭开了10年之前兄弟俩的“秘密”人生。

这种神秘组织的结构，乍看会让人联想到90年代中期日本的奥姆真理教。一群人，跑到穷乡僻壤的地方，脱离原来的“原生家庭”，建立起新的人生秩序。远离资本主义社会的分工制度，依靠简单的劳作技巧，在小团体中过着”朴素安稳“的生活。就如同电影里的一句话”It smells good“。

电影里的这个”世外桃源营地“，是电影主人公——哥哥Justin和弟弟Aaron（题外话，名字使用了演员的真名）10年前逃离的地方。10年前当哥哥带着年幼的弟弟离开营地时，还造成媒体的一时轰动，让这个营地瞬间”臭名昭著“，迅速被世人贴上了邪教的标签。10年过去了，兄弟两人的人生却并不尽如人意，事业上做着毫无意义可言的清洁工作，感情生活也常常因为曾经的”黑历史“而频频受挫。

此时收到的录像带，让弟弟Aaron提出要再回一次营地的念头。在Aaron的记忆力，camp充满了美好的回忆；而这些”美好“在哥哥Justin眼里都是被distorted过的，那是他10年前奋进全力挣脱的牢笼。然而为了能让弟弟重振生活动力，Justin答应了”故地重游“的提议。

Cult组织的核心leader又是谁呢？是营地所有人都在追求的Higher Power。就是这个Unknown的Higher Power，让这里的人如同手足一般的生活，哦不，是比兄弟手足更加祥和的生活状态。这里仿佛不存在“私欲”，不存在“占有”，所有人都在寻找或是等待Higher Power的指令，仿佛那里有着最高的智慧，指向幸福的生活。

对了，在神秘的cult圈，某些概念会有他们自己的定义。自杀不是suicide,而是ascention，很妙吧。此处省去1000字……

关于loop圈

就当观众开始以为导演要讨论邪教的时候，故事峰回路转，天空出现了两个月亮。

”这不是村上春树的1Q84吗？”心理无数的疑问划过。1Q84谈的也是邪教，也出现过跨越时空的“界域”，最关键的是，1Q84的世界就有两个月亮。

当我以为导演偷懒偷故事的时候，两个月亮变成了三个月亮。更神奇的是，还出现了类似于Tim Burton佩小姐的奇幻城堡里的Loop 圈。更为复杂的，这里的Loop的界限有些是人为创造的，而有的如同上文的cult组织，任由一个Higher Power来决定第三个月亮到来的时间，也就是Loop的界域。

电影从此走向超现实魔幻题材，一扫开始的文艺腔，取而代之的是上吊的惨白面孔，爆裂的血浆，和不停返回起点的时钟。当观众也开始在电影中迷路时，导演稍稍给了我们一点暗示。那些自主性选择自杀的人们，他们有着更贴近人类的气息。他们会暴怒，会嘲讽，会感叹，会无奈，这是与之前的营地组织成员最大的不同。那些逃不出loop圈的人，他们的生活虽然不可避免地重复，但是他们却坚持要用自己的双手为这个轮回的时空划出界限。

相反地，营地组织的成员则是等待第三个月亮月圆之时，大家围成了一圈，等待higher power的“解救”。

关于兄弟恩怨

当然了，此时的弟弟Aaron还是执着地要回到营地生活。在他看来回到现实生活也是每天的死循环，也是毫无意义的生活。当你感叹，哎呦，弟弟怎么活得那么悲观啊，恭喜你，你已经摸到了导演想要表达的核心了。

从文艺片走到惊悚片，再到科幻片，导演终于要拍醒观众，慢慢把把故事主旨抛出了。

当他们第三次走回营地，第三只月亮已经满月了。营地里人去楼空，兄弟二人走入了那个一直被封锁的屋子，里面不是怪兽也不是被囚禁的成员，而是满眼的录像带，记录了营地一切的录像带。他们看到了营地成员走向毁灭的最后一刻。整个营地都被那个Higher Power撕毁，兄弟二人出于求生本能火速驱车逃离。

然后导演在这里设置了一个小trick。车子发动不起来了，哥哥一如往常要坚持做点火发车的那个人，弟弟却说让自己来试试，此时此刻，哥哥Justin在危急时刻和弟弟调换了位置（哇，导演这个转变真的有点突如其来啊）。最终弟弟对哥哥”深情告白“后（可能感动了上苍了吧，或者感动了编剧），车子发动了……然后结局么，就是成功回到了现实人生。

此时我才突然恍然大悟，弟弟为什么会对人生那么悲观（虽然悲观主义者很有可能是天生的）。弟弟Aaron人生的所有决定都是Justin’s choice，而不是Aaron‘s choice。对于弟弟而言，他人生的一切都是哥哥帮他决定的，从10年前的逃离营地，到后来的清洁工工作，Aaron 的人生不可承受之轻便来自于这种人生的被动性。当你的人生都是别人帮你选择的时候，你当然会把责任都推到对方头上，代偿便是你永远无法体会人生真正的动力。

当方向盘不在自己手上，你当然很难有动力去相信沙漠会变成绿洲，你只会怪那个开车的人是白痴，毁了自己的旅程。哥哥呀，Loop圈和三个月亮都是幌子，我要的是My Choice啊。

两兄弟最后发现车没油了还能开，应该是没逃出？还有两兄弟去到一个房子时没人离开后，有个拍摄到他们的录像带怎么自动弹出了？

人类最古老最强烈的感情是恐惧

而最古老最强烈的恐惧是对未知的恐惧

霍华德●菲利普●洛夫克拉夫特

朋友之间会相对频繁地向彼此倾诉自己的感情

而兄弟姊妹则会等待一个更为方便的时机比如临终之前

无名

哥哥（不需要吃饭也不需要喝水，车也不需要加油，估计电池也一直都没换新的吧）到底是个什么东西？是一种什么样的存在？结尾说弟弟figure it out，难道他早就figure it out了吗？他一直都知道自己在循环里吗，为了多活几年把弟弟带出去，但始终知道自己从未离开过循环？如果那个神秘强大的不可名状的东西想让兄弟俩在出现三个月亮之前走不出边界，永远陷入循环，没必要用照片提示弟弟去房车那里和哥哥会合吧，也许他俩一直就在循环中（给水这个情节发生了两次，兄弟俩刚会合的时候哥哥就把水给了弟弟，之后弟弟说渴，弟弟手上是没有水的，哥哥掏包，弟弟还问你干什么，哥哥又给了一次水）？未知在玩弄他俩？