‘The Endless’ Directors Justin Benson And Aaron Moorhead Talk DIY Filmmaking, Shared Universes, And Their Love Of ‘Almost Famous’

I’m realizing that the tone questions is more a problem in terms of how you pitch the film, I assume, rather than you actually making it. Because something else I noticed was that while it’s being billed a horror film and I’m, admittedly, a giant wimp and was worried about being scared, I wasn’t frightened during it but it certainly followed me after watching it. So is atmosphere something you really work on building?

AM: Tone is the thing that is most important to get right in any film I think. That doesn’t mean it has to be consistent or that it has to be one particular tone but getting it so that your tone is the way you want everyone to feel is more important than getting any one individual thing right. But, getting those individual things right is what adds to tone.

Our movies will change tone often because we feel like real life is but I think that when you watch your first cut of the movie isn’t because a bunch of bad edits or the wrong choice of placement but because the tone isn’t there yet. You get this feeling in the pit of your stomach that something is wrong and that thing that’s wrong is that you’re not feeling the way you want to feel. The tone is the sum of the parts.

What were the obstacles of bringing some of the higher concepts of fantasy and science fiction to life on a smaller, DIY budget?

JB: Before Aaron and I had ever met we’d each had ten years of do-it-yourself short films and things like that and you hopefully picked up a bunch of skills and the ability and the craft to make a film along the way. Then we met and we took $20,000 out of my checking account and we wrote a script to fit that budget with the intent that we’d be careful. On the one hand, the film would have some sort of scale and magic to it but there would be nothing in that script that we couldn’t accomplish and it wouldn’t look silly.

We didn’t want this moment where you’re watching this really naturalistic movie and all of a sudden there’s this really obvious visual effect and it looks like a Youtube video. Now into movie number three we continue with this philosophy of be ambitious and try new things and think about the locations we have available to us that can give it scale along with Aarson’s toolbox of what he can do in post and what we can do optically that serves the story in every way from bare bones to thematically. I think the scene where they’re pulling on the rope does that really well where it hits the themes of the movie and it’s also just an interesting visual, adds to the plot and just seems to creep people out.

What else should people know about your movie?

JB: I remember when we made our first movie and I remember spending all the money in my bank account and being broke and going to make this movie with my friend. Everything turned out fine but I was thinking at the same time, “If this works out we won’t have to do this again and it will be bigger next time, we’ll have more resources and maybe an investor”. Three movies in we’re still doing the same thing and it’s really gratifying.

We’ve occasionally made the mistake of waiting for someone to give us connections to either a celebrity actor or investor or whatever it is and our fourth movie might be the same thing again, making a movie the best we can with what we have and I hope that a lot of people are doing that. That’s how really interesting, unfiltered films get made. I wish there were more Duplass brothers and Amy Seimetz and visions like that where the unifying element is that they just go and create no matter what.

“The Endless” is in select theaters now.