The Endless (2017) Explained: Time Loops, the Entity & What Really Happens

Years after escaping the mysterious cult they grew up in, brothers Justin and Aaron return to Camp Arcadia after receiving a cryptic message from the commune they left behind. What they expect to be a brief visit soon becomes something far stranger as they realise the camp is part of an impossible reality, where isolated pockets of time repeat endlessly under the watch of a mysterious unseen Entity. As the brothers uncover the truth behind Camp Arcadia, they must find a way out before becoming trapped in a time loop of their own.

The Endless also serves as a companion to writers-directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s earlier film, Resolution (2012), with both stories sharing the same mysterious Entity.

In this guide, we’ll explain how the time loops work, what the mysterious Entity really is, and ultimately what the film’s ending reveals about Justin and Aaron’s fate, drawing on interviews with writers, directors and stars Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead.

How the Time Loops Work

Camp Arcadia and the surrounding area consist of numerous isolated time loops that vary dramatically in both size and duration, each imprisoning a different group of people within its own isolated stretch of reality.

Why some loops last significantly longer than others is never fully explained. The closest answer comes from writer-director Justin Benson, who has said that Mike and Chris’s week-long loop in Resolution was deliberately structured to tell a complete story with its own beginning, middle and end. Whether this storytelling principle applies to every loop remains unknown.

The length of each cycle has the greatest impact on the lives of its inhabitants. Longer-lasting loops allow people to experience years between resets and build something resembling a normal life. For example, with a ten-year cycle, the residents of Camp Arcadia have built a surprisingly peaceful community. Many have spent countless cycles mastering new skills—from archery and painting to brewing and mathematics—choosing to make the best of an existence they cannot escape. Shorter loops, however, offer no such comfort, forcing those trapped inside to endure the same terrifying events repeatedly, sometimes within just a few seconds.

Unlike many time-loop stories, the people trapped inside these loops appear to retain enough awareness from previous cycles to accumulate knowledge and skills despite each reset. Exactly how memory functions within the loops is never fully explained, but characters such as Hal, Shane and the other residents clearly build upon experiences gained across countless repetitions.

The films also establish that simply entering the Entity’s territory is not enough to become permanently trapped. Writer-director Aaron Moorhead later clarified one of the films’ most important rules::

“To get stuck, you have to submit yourself to the deity, or get killed in a loop.”

This suggests that permanent captivity requires more than physical proximity alone, although the films never explain exactly what happens between first encountering the Entity and becoming trapped. Once trapped, each victim becomes confined within their own looping region, which repeatedly resets at the end of its cycle.

Regardless of a loop’s duration, the mysterious Entity always returns at the end of each cycle to kill its inhabitants. Although the film never explains exactly what the Entity is, its influence can be seen throughout every time loop. It controls the invisible boundaries marked by strange wooden posts, violently throwing back anyone who attempts to cross them. As each cycle draws to a close, the moon shifts unnaturally overhead before the Entity appears, kills everyone trapped inside, and resets the loop back to the beginning.

Whether permanent captivity can ever be escaped becomes one of the film’s central mysteries. Justin and Aaron’s fate—and what it reveals about the Entity’s rules—is explored in the ending.

The Different Time Loops Explained

The film briefly reveals several additional loops beyond those explored in detail. The examples below are the most significant to the story and illustrate how dramatically the Entity’s time loops can differ.

Although each group is confined to its own time loop, many are aware of neighbouring loops. Camp Arcadia, Chris and Michael, and even Shitty Carl possess knowledge of the surrounding areas, suggesting that the loops are not completely isolated from one another.

Justin and Aaron are unique because they are not yet trapped. As a result, they can cross loop boundaries freely, making them the only characters able to travel between multiple loops throughout the film. Despite his deteriorating mental state, Shitty Carl is even able to draw Justin a map showing the locations of several neighbouring loops, demonstrating how familiar some long-term inhabitants have become with the surrounding area.

What Is the Entity in The Endless?

The Entity is the unseen supernatural force behind the repeating time loops in both Resolution (2012) and The Endless (2017). The films never explain what it is, where it came from, or why it creates the loops.

The Entity never appears in physical form. Instead, it makes its presence known through videotapes, photographs, drawings and written messages that appear at precisely the right moment. These communications repeatedly reveal events before the characters themselves experience them, suggesting that the Entity possesses knowledge beyond humanity’s normal experience of time. Whether it predicts the future or simply exists outside linear time is never explained.

Its influence extends beyond communication. The Entity appears able to manipulate the physical world, most clearly by pulling the rope during the Struggle, while also controlling the invisible boundaries that prevent people from leaving their looping regions. Taken together, these abilities portray an unseen intelligence that exerts extraordinary control over both its environment and the people within it.

Beyond these demonstrated abilities, however, the films reveal remarkably little. Benson and Moorhead have confirmed that the same Entity appears in both films, but have deliberately left its origin, purpose and true nature unexplained.

Most Popular Interpretations

While the films establish how the Entity operates, they deliberately leave its true nature open to interpretation. As a result, several competing theories have emerged:

At the broadest level, many viewers interpret the Entity as a cosmic intelligence beyond human understanding — some compare it to Lovecraft’s Yog-Sothoth, given its unseen nature and apparent existence outside normal linear time. The directors have never confirmed or endorsed this comparison.

If it’s a cosmic force, the next question is what it wants. One theory: it feeds on emotion, sustained by the hope, despair, and repeated death its victims experience. Another suggests it’s less interested in emotion than in stories, constructing self-contained narratives that play out to their conclusion before beginning again. This interpretation is partly supported by Justin Benson’s explanation that the week-long loop in Resolution was deliberately structured to tell a complete story with a beginning, middle and end.

A third interpretation views the Entity as an ancient deity demanding submission rather than worship. This interpretation aligns most closely with Aaron Moorhead’s explanation that people become trapped either by willingly submitting to the Entity or by dying within one of its loops.

However, this explains how people become trapped rather than why submission matters to the Entity. Its ultimate objective remains as mysterious as ever.

Rather than providing a definitive explanation, The Endless presents the evidence and leaves the conclusion to the viewer. In many ways, that may be the Entity’s defining characteristic: it can be observed, but never fully understood.

The Entity is built to be understood only in part. The films are far clearer on how it operates than why it exists — the rules are consistent, but never justified. That’s what makes the Entity so compelling: a force whose behaviour is surprisingly consistent, yet whose true nature remains forever out of reach.

Ending Explained

By the end of The Endless, Justin and Aaron escape Camp Arcadia and drive away from the Entity’s territory while the camp itself resets for another ten-year cycle. Hal and the other residents remain behind as the cycle begins again, while the brothers finally leave the Entity’s domain.

Although the mechanics of the ending initially appear ambiguous, Benson and Moorhead have consistently described it as a deliberately hopeful contrast to Resolution. Rather than repeating the earlier film’s bleak conclusion, The Endless is intended to show what it looks like to break free from a destructive cycle.

Did Justin and Aaron Really Escape?

The film never explicitly explains why Justin and Aaron escape while everyone else remains trapped. However, the evidence established throughout the film points towards a straightforward explanation. Aaron Moorhead later explained that permanent captivity requires either submitting to the Entity or dying within a loop. Since the brothers are never shown doing either, they were likely never permanently trapped. This would explain why the brothers are ultimately able to escape without contradicting the Entity’s established rules.

Some viewers have argued that the brothers merely escape into a larger time loop. While the film leaves enough ambiguity for that reading, Benson and Moorhead consistently describe the ending as a hopeful one, making a genuine escape the interpretation most consistent with their own comments.

The Brothers’ Emotional Journey

While the supernatural mystery dominates much of the film, Justin Benson has explained that the emotional resolution between the brothers—not solving the sci-fi puzzle—was always the ending’s most important element.

Throughout the film, Justin and Aaron remain trapped in a different kind of cycle. As Aaron Moorhead explained, Justin’s story is ultimately about control, while Aaron’s is about autonomy. Throughout the film, Justin repeatedly tries to protect his younger brother by making decisions on his behalf, while Aaron increasingly pushes back, determined to make his own choices. Earlier in the film, Hal even confronts Justin over having exaggerated the horrors of Camp Arcadia after their original escape, reinforcing how Justin has long tried to shape Aaron’s view of the world. By the ending, however, he finally relinquishes that control.

Their relationship finally changes during the film’s closing moments. Justin stops trying to decide Aaron’s future for him and allows him complete freedom to choose for himself. Ironically, it is only after Aaron is given that freedom that he chooses to leave with Justin.

Benson has described this change as the emotional heart of the ending, saying the transformation between the brothers was conveyed through an “understated gesture” rather than a dramatic speech or revelation. The exact gesture is never identified, but the shift in their relationship is unmistakable. For the first time, Justin treats Aaron as an equal rather than someone who needs to be protected.

What the Ending Means

The ending of The Endless ultimately operates on two levels. On the surface, Justin and Aaron escape the Entity’s domain while Camp Arcadia begins another cycle.

On a deeper level, however, the brothers break the emotional pattern that has governed their relationship for years. Moorhead has described the film as exploring what it means to “break out of your cycle or be doomed to repeat history forever.” The time loops are therefore more than a science-fiction concept—they become a reflection of the repeating patterns people create in their own lives.

Importantly, the film does not suggest that everyone should make the same choice. As Moorhead has observed, some people genuinely enjoy living within their own cycle, and Camp Arcadia’s residents appear to accept their fate rather than fight it. The Endless is less interested in judging that decision than in exploring the freedom to choose.

Ultimately, The Endless is about more than escaping a supernatural time loop. As Moorhead suggested, it’s about breaking the cycles that keep people repeating the same patterns throughout their lives. Justin and Aaron’s physical escape matters because it reflects something even more significant: after years of fear, guilt and control, they finally break the cycle between themselves.

Additional Questions About The Endless

Who is the man trapped in the tent?

The man trapped in the tent is never identified by name. He is credited simply as “Early 1900s Man“, suggesting he has remained trapped for over a century. His loop lasts only a few seconds, forcing him to relive the same gruesome death—his skull exploding—before immediately resetting. The phonograph inside the tent reinforces the idea that he has been trapped since the early twentieth century. Justin Benson later confirmed the filmmakers’ intention, describing him as “the oldest loop that you ever see… some kind of frontiersman like in a tent.”

Who is Shitty Carl?

Before becoming trapped, Shitty Carl exploited Camp Arcadia and the surrounding area for money. He is now imprisoned within a three-hour time loop, which he bitterly describes as a “time-prison.” Rather than allowing the Entity to end each cycle, he often kills himself early, only to burst back into existence moments later shouting “God damn it!” Despite his deteriorating sanity, he has developed an unusually detailed understanding of the neighbouring loops, even drawing Justin a map of the area.

Why are the Camp Arcadia residents happy?

Moorhead’s own read is that it’s genuine, if melancholy: “there are people that do enjoy it inside their cycle. I mean, the cult at the end. And you don’t even feel bad for them. A little bit, but it’s more melancholy. It’s like, ‘Oh. They kind of enjoy it there.” Beyond that, whether it’s a reward for submission or acceptance making captivity bearable is genuinely debated (see our earlier discussion) — the directors haven’t resolved it definitively.

Do I need to watch Resolution before The Endless?

No — the directors are explicit about this. Moorhead: “The movie can very clearly be enjoyed on its own, because there was no reason to make a sequel to what was a very small release.” Benson adds: “Most people who see The Endless have no idea about Resolution and they experience the film at a high comprehension.” That said, watching Resolution first adds context and a few extra layers on rewatch.

Is there a sequel to The Endless?

Not a feature film — but a TV series is in development. Benson and Moorhead confirmed on the Script Apart podcast that they’re deep into writing a series set in the same universe as The Endless, with the two again playing themselves as Aaron and Justin. No release date has been announced as of this writing.

What inspired the Entity’s creation?

Two separate origin stories from the directors. On the concept of communication through media: Moorhead: “What if you watched an entire film, and at the end of the film you realized that everything you’d been seeing was the POV of some unseen, horrifying thing?” On the broader mythos, Benson cites John Keel’s ultraterrestrial theory (discussed earlier) and separately: “While developing The Endless, Benson recalled reading Stephen King’s Desperation. ‘There was this idea of a haunted geology… some primordial force, probably older than man, that is affecting the region in an otherworldly way. That stuck in my head.'”

Where was The Endless filmed?

In Descanso, a small community in the Cuyamaca Mountains of southeastern San Diego County, California — specifically at Camp Oliver, 8761 Riverside Dr. Moorhead has spoken about the terrain’s eerie look: “Certain parts of that area look like life on Mars. It’s very odd. You don’t even notice how strange it is until you put a camera on it.”

Is Hal the leader of Camp Arcadia?

Not officially, by his own account in the film — Hal talks the most and acts like camp authority, but he explicitly says there has never been a leader; the real authority, he claims, is the entity itself. Whether that’s genuine or self-deception is critics’ debate, not something the directors have settled on record.

Why does the Entity communicate through videotapes and photographs?

Benson and Moorhead connect it to an old superstition about recording stealing your soul — “it’s as close as we’re going to get to something like immortality for now,” especially fitting for a film about immortality. Benson frames recorded media as a kind of ghost: an imprint in time rather than a conscious presence, something you just witness “like you see film being projected.”

What is the Struggle?

A tug-of-war challenge Hal has the group play, where one end of a rope somehow rises into the darkness on its own. Aaron ties the rope around his chest and wins; when Justin takes his turn, he’s yanked hard to the ground and injures his hand. On the production side, Moorhead explains the visual trick: “We tied the rope to a pull ring on a tree. We wanted to make it look alien, like there weren’t any trees around for it to be tied to, so we removed a lot of the trees in post and then tracked in the moon.”