It Ends Review: Alex Ullom's Directorial Debut Processes Gen Z Trauma In Haunting Thriller
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Earlier this year, short filmmaker Kane Parsons's Backrooms hit theaters and become a massive hit for A24. Since then, Hollywood have been hell-bent on getting the "next Backrooms" and it's that mentality that, unfortunately, puts Alex Ullom's It Ends at a disadvantage. It'll no doubt be compared to Parsons's film, and there's a world where one could see home studio Neon wanting to call it "Backroads."
But Ullom's film, outside of the obvious plot elements, doesn't feel like a Backrooms knock-off at all, instead feeling like a cerebral take on things like The Blair Witch (it also feels far more akin to House of Leaves than those comparing Backrooms to the Mark Z. Danielewski). Though bogged down in some inconsistent filmmaking techniques, when It Ends focuses on the existential dread of what's happening it becomes a haunting meditation on Gen Z trauma, and the increasing lack of one's inability to connect in a world where we don't process anything bad.
College friends Tyler (Mitchell Cole), Day (Akira Jackson), Fisher (Noah Toth) and James (Phineas Yoon) have reunited for a day and are ending things on a late-night food run. But in following the GPS it takes them down an endless road with no turns. They can't turn around, and the minute they leave the car hordes of screaming people come out of the woods to attack them. Desperate for an explanation the group just keeps driving, hoping that their salvation lies at the end of the road.
At barely 90 minutes, It Ends doesn't waste any time, though there's little story that necessarily requires a lot of exposition. The audience meets the four friends in the middle of the night. They've spent the day moving out of college and, through random snatches of conversation, it seems they're on the next leg of their life journey. It's also clear that they haven't actually spent all this time together since graduating high school. The main outsider is Tyler, who spent some time in the military (though admits he was never deployed) and struggles to maintain a meaningful relationship, or really any human connection. He's needled and prodded by James, the analytical one of the bunch, for reasons that are never explicated but no doubt have to do with something in the past.
There's an interesting push and pull between the past and the present in Ullom's script. Once the group becomes trapped on the road, all they have are the memories of what's come before. They look at photos already downloaded and listen to songs found on their phones. They talk about high school. At one point, James even asks if they'll ever experience anything new again. It Ends becomes a story about the lack of an enduring culture. After enduring trauma upon trauma, why not just hide out in a car reminiscing about what everything?
For Day and Fisher, they at least try to find connection in themselves and process the trauma of their current experience. They go outside and scream every morning, shouting out the emotions of the inescapable horror they're in. Toth, Jackson, Yoon and Cole are all natural performers, reacting in ways that feel like how the average person would. Toth and Jackson make their characters fun, trying to find some type of normality as the days, months, years (?) go by. Cole is the strong silent type while Yoon plays James as one desperate for an answer, desperate to make meaning out of what's happening.
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Outside of the initial surprises of people running out of the woods, It Ends is less an overt horror movie and more a psychological exploration of the unknown. The majority of the movie sees the friends talking and wondering. For James, who charts the divergences in events throughout the drive, he speculates that the group is dead and from there the movie explores the concept of purgatory. Is this something having to do with the group's bad decisions? Or their inability to live life to the fullest? Really, though, the audience goes back to this idea of Gen Z being raised in isolation, living in a landscape of trauma and uncertainty, with each character illustrating a final response. They encounter strangers on the road, many of whom just lie down in silence, giving up and waiting for....anything....to come.
And that desire for answers can very well turn audiences off of It Ends. Particularly in the film's final image when everything comes to a head. And yet, watching it myself, I didn't feel like I'd be cheated out of anything. There is a deeper meaning to the movie, and seeing the film's final image seemed appropriate for what the movie sought to explore.
Alex Ullom's film is a unique little movie that doesn't try to aim for cool, slick, or viral. Instead, it's a dark, melancholy story about where the 20somethings of today are. Lonely on a one-way road were they're forced to only remember the days of yore while everyone else stops trying around them. That, right there, feels like the true horror of It Ends.
Grade: C+
It Ends hits theaters Friday.
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