Full Circle: Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead Cement Their Indie Horror Mastery With UFO Cult Chiller The Endless

MM: Can you talk about your method of adding original music to The Endless?

JB: There happens to be a lot of songs in the ’60s and ’70s that are inherently creepy. I would probably put “Hotel California” in that category. “House of the Rising Sun” is another one. The obvious problem is that we’ve never made a movie where you could afford to license a pop song. Luckily, we discovered that the “House of the Rising Sun” lyrics are public domain. You just can’t use the melody one of The Animal’s track. We created our own version, but there’s enough that the mental real estate is still there.

MM: Talk about your first experience at a major festival with your film Resolution.

JB: Resolution was our first major success. We didn’t know anybody, but we submitted it to a lot of top tier film festivals. After we sent off the DVDs we were discouraged because we didn’t know anyone in the festival scene. Eventually we got a call from a junior programmer at Tribeca and they were like, “Hey, I found your movie. The intern rejected it and threw it in the garbage, but I thought the rejection was interesting, so I watched it, and I liked it. Is the premiere available?” All of a sudden we had a way in.

The most valuable thing when you go to a festival is that you reflect on the film you made with a bunch of other filmmakers that went through similar experiences. You grow as a person, an artist, and as a craftsman.

MM: Any advice for aspiring moviemakers?

AM: Before you even start the writing process, write a long list of everything you have at your disposal—especially locations—but even people you find interesting. Gear—if you can borrow it. Blocks of time, even. Just a list of your assets that can go into a movie before you’ve even thought of a story. Then write down a long list of things you find interesting in the world, and stare at them for a little while and see if you can find a story out of that. If you can, you can go make that movie. Then you can apply the broader “Pick up an iPhone, and go make a movie.” advice that everybody says. But it’s an actual path forward to go do it.

JB: I get paid to write screenplays, but it wasn’t like that for like 15 years. It’s very hard to get motivated, and if you can motivate yourself for 15 years to write when no one is paying you, when you get paid it’s so much easier. Because I have such a hard time focusing, it’s never easy, but if you train yourself to do it, then that’s just how you’re spending your free time. MM

The Endless opened April 6, 2018 in select theaters, courtesy of Well Go USA Entertainment. All images courtesy of Well Go USA Entertainment. 

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