Directed By Alex Ullom

Starring – Phineas Yoon, Mitchell Cole, Akira Jackson

The Plot – Friends on a late-night food run become trapped on an infinite highway with otherworldly terrors lurking beyond. Confined in their Jeep Cherokee, they must decide whether to accept their fate or attempt escape.

Rated R for pervasive language

It Ends – Official Trailer – In Theaters August 21

POSITIVES

To anyone who has ever been tasked with spending an ungodly amount of time within the claustrophobic confines of an automobile, amidst the same nothingness conversations that test the nerves of those surrounding you, It Ends might surmise enough nerve-shattering thrills to elicit a compelling joy ride, but for those audiences seeking psychological stimulation in the execution of the craft, Alex Ullom makes more than enough meaningful choices to evoke a fresh perspective in horror cinema, particularly one who subscribes to atmospheric relevance over cheap and timely jump scares. On a conceptual level, the film has every vital ingredient to elicit a compelling experience, whether in the ambiguous mystique of its repetitious gimmick, with the lack of answers surmising more thought-provoking questions, or the realism and believability stitched to minimally developed characters who force us to hang onto every word of their conversations in order to grasp a deeper significance to the subliminal dynamics at play. On the former, the script also written by Ullom, certainly makes a point of exploring every logical theory of the audience who are inevitably immersing themselves in the plight of these characters, where much of the opening act is not only spent dissecting the scattered clues of their brief-but-evidential experiences, but also in fleshing out this atmospheric helplessness that springs disorienting paranoia from seeds of geographic obscurity, a feeling that everyone in the audience can relate to, at some point throughout their lives. As for the characters themselves, the dialogue, while a bit too forceful on the adult language at times, does balance a rich combination of vivid memories and endless ‘Would you rather’ scenarios that may feel trivial from an introductory distance of attempting to meet them at eye level, but eventually gives way towards effectively defining the resiliency and restlessness of its characters, which eventually materialize into a battle of wills during the movie’s second half, and while the characters themselves are essentially written in ways that require more nuance out of the performances, a feat that every one of the core four here eagerly revel in, it soon becomes transparently evident how three-dimensionally these thoughtless topics are used as a crutch for them to lean heavily against reality, with nearly enough persistence in the rhythmic consistency of back-and-forth retorts that nearly make you forget that each of them are locked in this seemingly inescapable purgatory, with only their connective chemistry to keep them moving forward through each grueling mile. Among those reputable performances, every one of these actors interact instinctively within the detectability of the lens, in ways that coherently constructs insightful honesty to the depths of the character responses, even as they paint a completely obscured picture towards the other characters, and while Ullom delivers enough showcasing light for each of them to stand out at various times throughout the engagement, the deconstructive transformation of Phineas Yoon’s James stole the spotlight, specifically between the initial eagerness to solve the puzzle, and tedium to repetitiously live it through what feels like undefined years. Yoon’s single greatest strength as a commanding presence includes highly emotive eyes that deviate between speculative curiosity and deflating disappointment, particularly during some heftily dramatic work coinciding with Mitchell Cole’s Tyler, which springs devastating stakes at a time where a situational breakthrough feels merely inches away. If anyone takes the silver medal to follow up Yoon’s charismatic brilliance, it goes without saying that Akira Jackson’s intense urgency lends wings to the suspenseful direness of every unforeseen development, where her angsty responses and forced composure naturally emulate a voice for the voiceless audience, where in the face of overwhelming adversity, she represents the most mentally vulnerable among them, in turn gifting her several dramatically-depended opportunities to flesh out the annoyance turned to anger that drive her supercharged deliveries. While the ensemble do a remarkable job exuding the material, the work from Ullom both atmospherically and visually make every frame pop with profound meaning and unforeseen whimsicality that felt especially refreshing for a psychological horror film. To understand it as effortlessly as possible, the sequences pertaining to the music montages of the friends living within this desolate highway feel similar to something like Stand By Me, where the energy and infectiousness of their experiences feel zeroed out with vividness and radiant warmth so immersive that it feels like a beacon of bequiffed memories, and between it and Ullom’s expansive eye for expressive detailing, with some cunningly creative camera placements among this cramped, contained setting, he has intricately imaginative ways of tapping into the vulnerability factors that plague these friends relentlessly.

NEGATIVES

In a lot of ways, It Ends feels like a short film stretched to feature length, most particularly in some glaringly detracting speedbumps to this movie’s meager 84-minute runtime, which will inevitably test the patience of those not as faithfully vested as I was during the first half. For starters, the momentum of the storytelling grinds to a screeching halt once the characters deviate away from analyzing every route of escape, and instead accept their fate with the oppressive weight of each new day, where the unavoidable repetition of its creative outline eventually sets in, with so many of these later scenes stretched to possibly pad a runtime that it otherwise doesn’t have enough material to reach. For my money, if the script spent more time establishing the characters during the film’s opening fifteen minutes, then it wouldn’t feel like we’re constantly attempting to catch up to them in every long-winded exposition dump, leaving the option for explorable resolution with a lot more time to faithfully pursue. This seamlessly leads to my other major problem with the script, as despite a couple of montages pertaining to the characters attempting seemingly everything, there’s a couple of directions based on the established rules of the gimmick that I would’ve liked to of seen at least attempted, specifically those involving the car’s stopping ability. Without spoiling anything, I will say that when the car stops once the characters have figured out they’re in an inescapable loop, something aggressively urgent forces them to get back in the car and continue forward, and while this certainly justifies the need for them to keep moving, it fails to convey if the same result would happen if the group drove in a circle around the same patch of road, or even if they attempted to drive off-road (Technically sideways). It’s two of quite a few exploratory avenues that I wish the film remotely attempted, but there comes a time midway through where you simply have to suspend the disbelief of a car’s ability to journey a million miles, or the lack of sleep failing to set in on the characters, where a possible sequel or even experienced writer could capitalize more on the outlets of the gimmick, which regretfully don’t go as thoroughly explored as I would’ve preferred. Beyond the pratfalls of the script, the intended destination of the ending is also a bit disappointment, not only in its interpretive requirement to fill in the pieces yourself, but also in the flatly registering simplicity of the resolution, which dramatically underscores the helplessness of its plotting gimmick. About midway through the film, it becomes painfully transparent that we’re either going to be left with abruptly unimpactful or pretentiously pandering, and while the answer resides somewhere in the middle, it doesn’t leave us any closer to the satisfying kind of closure that emphasizes the moral lesson or growth of its characters, instead surmising this visual punchline of sorts for the eventual resolution that single-handedly elated all of the air out of my auditorium, manifesting this detectable groan that silences any preconceived doubts about this movie’s ability to land amongst a mainstream audience. Last but not least, while the direction from Ullom is mostly exceptional, the long-term consistency of his thrills, after a scintillating opening act, fail to follow suit, leaving this lack of urgency and intensity throughout the second half that had it feeling further and further from horror. Once again, the problem seems to spawn from an overall lack of creativity during the second half, particularly in the script’s abrupt halting of further fleshing out this world beyond a certain point, and considering so much of Ullom’s enacted directorial tendencies flourish this appeasing element of aforementioned whimsical warmth that appraises dimensionality for so much of the imagery, it leaves very little room for the actual horror of the narrative, where the entirety of the sought-after R-rating feels plucked directly from egregious vulgarity from characters overwhelmed by their situational adversity.

OVERALL
It Ends is an existential psychological thriller that options for profound subtext and metaphorical storytelling, rather than exhilarating thrills and satisfying pay-offs, surmising a regretfully conflicting experience where the required patience of its mileage isn’t fully justified by the intention of its deflating destination. Despite its glaring problems, the film is anchored by naturalistic performances and atmospheric dread thick enough to drive audience anxiety, and while its creativity eventually runs out of gas during a disappointing climax, there’s enough uniqueness here to cater to some kind of horror hound seeking road-winding restlessness in calamitous doses.

My Grade: 5.9 or C-