“Can you have power over yourself if you give up any amount of authority to something else?”

I’m not sure how I feel about indie filmmakers trying to replicate the connected universe formula that has proven so financially lucrative but creatively stunting for mainstream franchises. On the one hand, it could lead to stagnation as directors return to successful work that has an existing audience. On the other, it allows them to expand on certain themes without having to reinvent the wheel or create a derivative prelude as a scaffolding to approach the same ideas. In the case of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, whose debut film—the raw psycho-horror Resolution—ended on an ambiguous note, I’m willing to play along. I think I’m mostly okay with it because I trust that they have more to explore instead of a desire to milk it for all it’s worth like the cynical heads of the big studios.

The Endless takes place several years after the events of Resolution. The two primary characters from that film, Mike (Peter Cilella) and Chris (Vinny Curran), make an appearance, but they’re not the focus. Instead, two minor characters from the earlier film—so minor that I’m pretty sure they were unnamed—are the main characters here. Played by the directors themselves using their own first names, Justin and Aaron are two brothers who have left a mysterious UFO death cult. In Resolution, the UFO cult was used as a bit of comic relief as Justin tried to proselytize Mike by proclaiming his knowledge of the “celestial messiah.” But in The Endless, that cult is no laughing matter. In fact, Justin had bailed out with his brother in tow just before they committed ritual suicide ten years ago. At least, that’s what he thought, until they receive a cryptic video message from Anna (Callie Hernandez) that indicates their “ascension” is now imminent. Aaron, whose memories of his young adulthood in the cult are hazy, only remembers the pleasant parts—campfires, home-cooked meals, live music, a supportive community. Justin, on the other hand, recalls the horrors that took place behind the scenes. Aaron presses, and Justin agrees to visit for one night to say their goodbyes.

But the same entity that haunted Mike and Chris is now luring Aaron and Justin back into its clutches. Like the video of Chris in Resolution, the video of Anna was somehow sent to Aaron and Justin by this incorporeal being. An implication in the first film is made abundantly clear in The Endless. At the very end of Resolution, Chris apologizes to Mike just as Mike submits to the entity and asks for a do-over. This request was granted (or forced upon them) and the pair have been repeating their weeklong ordeal for years, trying subtle variations in an attempt to satisfy their captor so that they can go home. The wrinkle that is added to this familiar time-loop concept is a spatial element. In this remote backwoods area, there are different pockets of time that each have their own standard durations. Mike and Chris happen to have a week. Carl (James Jordan), who lives on the periphery of Camp Arcadia, has only a few hours. He prefers to end things on his own terms and explains some of the mystery to Justin.

But it remains unclear to Aaron and Justin for quite some time. When they first enter Camp Arcadia they’re greeted by familiar faces. Aaron vaguely remembers some of them but eagerly makes new friends. Justin remains aloof, suspicious that a “healthy lifestyle” could keep them all looking so young. He is upset that Anna, who must be over forty but looks mid-twenties, is hitting on his kid brother. It turns out that the time loop of Camp Arcadia is on the order of a decade, at which time some trick of the light or demonic activity creates a mirage of three moons in the sky, then the pocket world comes to an end and begins anew. According to Carl, the campers are not only undisturbed by their predicament, but have come to regard the entity as a sacred mystery and actually do commit themselves in ritual sacrifice as the end of their loop nears.

There are some haunting individual sequences here. My favorite is when Aaron discovers a tent with a seconds-long time loop inside. A creepy rendition of “House of the Rising Sun” is stuck repeating on a gramophone, punctuated by screams. Inside the tent, a man continually “spawns” on a chair, takes a moment to orient himself and perhaps remember his inevitable fate, and dives forward, offscreen, where he is killed. When he notices Aaron watching him, he tells him that he needs to leave before he gets stuck too. It’s a brilliantly terrifying standalone scene.

While I found the basic hook to be engaging, I thought there was a bit too much fluff. Too many of the interactions with the cult felt extraneous and overly reliant on tropes. I didn’t find Aaron’s eagerness to assimilate or Justin’s bemused doubtfulness to feel quite right, tonally. And it seemed like too many of the shenanigans were in service of a hollow build-up—smoke and mirrors without anything behind them. For instance, one of the cult members, Shane (Shane Williams) does a magic trick where he throws a baseball up in the air and it hovers up in the darkness, held there by the entity, before falling into Justin’s disbelieving hand. The leader, Hal (Tate Ellington), who accuses Justin of leaving because he wasn’t allowed to be in charge himself, has mysterious equations scrawled upon a blackboard in his office. He claims this is only his “interpretation” of the mystery that’s out there, but that others should come to their own conclusions. As a group, the camp members play a nighttime game of tug-of-war with only the mysterious force pulling the other end from the pitch blackness. Only if we are to view the caricature as a meta-commentary on the modern religion of “vague spirituality” does this hodgepodge depiction of a cult feel viable. Otherwise it’s too silly and splintered to be taken seriously. There are a few other warts, like an exposition-heavy opening, and a questionable motive for not hightailing it out of there the moment the danger becomes apparent. But my main complaint is that too much time is devoted to having the demonic entity do things just to be spooky, to the point where plot seems to have been neglected in favor of atmosphere—something the pair are good at, but not good enough to not have a strong plot.

I would be remiss not to mention the wit that Benson infuses into his script. While Vinny Curran’s Chris remains as hilarious as he was in Resolution (“You’re all hunched over like some kind of James Bond with scoliosis trying to hide a boner.”), there are quite a few additional moments of solid comedy here as well. A favorite is when the two are on their way to Camp Arcadia. Almost offhand, in the middle of a conversation, one of them points out the window and says, “boobs!” We cut to an image of two perfect half-sphere, domed buildings built right next to one another. “The boobs!” the other replies. So far, my wife and I have interrupted our own conversations a dozen or so times with it and we still laugh. (Don’t try to google “the endless boobs” or you’ll get unwanted results.)

There are a number of minor plot holes that probably would not bear up under close scrutiny, but I find that I don’t mind too much. The unnerving individual sections of The Endless are effective at getting under your skin, and the core story of two displaced brothers looking for a home is one that should engage the viewer enough to relate to the protagonists on a human level. I don’t find it to be the modern indie masterpiece that some claim it is—I don’t even think it is as good as Resolution—but it’s still a solid bit of indie sci-fi/horror with enough unsettling moments to be worth your while.