Dir - Justin Benson/Aaron Moorhead
Overall: GOOD
The follow-up to their quite excellent, 2014 film Spring, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead's The Endless acts as a quasi-sequel to their collaborative debut Resolution. Essentially Lovecraftian horror with nods to Twin Peaks and the Heaven's Gate cult, it ends up being a highly unique, ambiguous hybrid that very gradually becomes more unnerving as it goes on. The performances by Benson and Moorhead in particular are both convincing and funny, consistently mumbled dialog aside. Though it has a slightly awkward finish, the filmmakers balance their more comedic tendencies for the most part with an intriguing and bizarre story that frequently circles back to its dominant, mysterious tone. The movie confidently poses more questions than providing answers and some may be unwilling to forgive the cryptic leniency, but it most likely will benefit those who revisit it. Which is actually one of the main plot points of the film itself; returning to something to obtain closure yet instead unlocking more boxes to challenge that closure. The fact that such an interpretation can be either way off or right on the nose is one of the things that make the movie work in the first place.
Dir - Shin'ichirô Ueda
Overall: MEH
Essentially a (very) long build up to a (very) long joke, Shin'ichirô Ueda's One Cut of the Dead, (Kamera o Tomeru na!), tries the viewers patience to an aggravating extent. To the film's credit, it is wildly ambitious for such an independent film and if you absolutely have to make yet another goddamn zombie movie, it is admirable that Ueda here chose such a highly unorthodox way to go about it. On the technical end of things, the opening thirty-seven minute, single take is quite impressive as is the third act which goes it one further and brings everything rather ridiculously together. It is a shame then that the road to get there is so boring and off-puitting. The first segment just goes on and on and with no context, (as that would spoil the finish), it just seems clumsy and juvenile. Ultimately, the whole movie comes off more like a prank that overstays its welcome where the payoff is fun for everyone not being pranked, yet the victim of such a jest will be left brimming with an awkward mixture of anger, humility, and eventually honest amusement.
Dir - Álex de la Iglesia
Overall: GOOD
Another top-notch, wonderfully dark and violent entry from Álex de la Iglesia, The Bar, (El bar), was the first of two films released in 2017 by the director, the other being the straight comedy Perfectos desconocidos which was a remake of the previous year's Perfect Strangers from Italian filmmaker Paolo Genovese. As far as this one is concerned, it utilizes an almost Hitchcockian gimmick, (people trapped in a single location that they cannot leave), and it follows the usual patterns of such high-tension thrillers where the characters quickly and aggressively begin to not trust each other, resulting in much mayhem ensuing. Said mayhem is consistently amusing and increasingly, (as well as literally), messy. While de la Iglesia sees the mysterious, quarantine-based origin of what starts off his character's predicament as being of little importance, in doing so he emphasis that the real threat is merely normal people reacting paranoid under extreme circumstances. The plot avoids having any kind of payoff in this respect which might aggravate anyone hoping that the entire thing was leading to something more profound. The lack of a twist though is actually refreshing and it rather becomes a twist in and of itself that it does not have one.
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