The Cast of Cthulhu: The Endless

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear. And the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”
– H.P. Lovecraft

“Adding a Lovecraft quote to your film doesn’t make your film Lovecraftian.”
– The Cast of Cthulhu

So, we’re talking about The Endless, a film that pays lip service to Lovecraft, but we’re also talking about so much more than that, so check out the timecode notes below if you want to get straight to the discussion of a film that raises more questions about its world in its attempt to give us answers and that fundamentally misunderstands the term “Lovecraftian” (if that’s even what the filmmakers were intending in the first place).

We don’t get into that discussion until 42:03 though as we first spend some time to encourage listeners to pick up Battleship Pretension’s 101 Best Movies of the 2010s at 1:13, discuss our thoughts on #TheSnyderCut at 3:45, and discuss the horrific allegations against Richard Stanley and why we support his “canceling” (and also why we hate that term) at 19:18.

For more information on AAPI organizations to support in the wake of the horrible actions of white supremacists, check out this link and let’s all contribute to stopping Asian hate.

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1 Response

  1. FictionIsntReal says:

    I can understand not wanting to cover any of Richard Stanley’s work anymore, but what is the rationale for deleting an old episode? It strikes me as the sort of thing you’d expect from the Ministry of Truth, as if you had to cover up your own past.

    The piece that I would point to on “cancel culture” is Yascha Mounk’s “Stop Firing the Innocent”. Richard Stanley was accused of multiple violent crimes and the woman accusing him was able to reference verifiable things like arrest records & restraining orders, so there is more of a formal process there compared to the usual Twitter nonsense.

    It wasn’t always the case that accused men were believed by default. The Scottsboro boys were a rather famous counter-example to that. Within popular culture, “To Kill a Mockingbird” is a famous example of a female accuser being believed when she shouldn’t be.

    The Endless is the first Benson & Moorehad movie I actually liked, and even after Synchronic I still think it’s their best (I even enjoy the duo’s acting here more than the grating lack of chemistry in that). Resolution works better in combination with this, but still not enough to be as good of a movie.

    Jim seems to be interpreting the loop through the “rules” of Groundhog Day: sufficient character development can break you out. I didn’t get that impression. Rather, if you get stuck, you’re stuck. This duo are just lucky enough to have a more lax loop they could leave before getting stuck.

    As I noted before, I don’t consider the supernatural entity in this film & Resolution to actually be Lovecraftian, because it cares too much about humans & human storytelling.

    If you’ve got a place to send it, I’ll send you (or a charity of your choice) $100 if you provide evidence the Atlanta spa shooter was a white supremacist.

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