Writer-director Alexander Ullom makes his feature debut with It Ends, a SXSW premiere generating some buzz as another entry in the trending liminal horror genre among Backrooms and Exit 8.
Four friends are meeting up on a routine late-night food run. Day (Akira Jackson), Fisher (Noah Toth), and James (Phinehas Yoon) are longtime friends reuniting with former classmate Tyler (Mitchell Cole). Day tells Tyler they need to pick up another friend at his house. Day is glancing at a navigator screen giving Tyler directions. She tells him to look for an upcoming turn, but it never materializes. Tyler backtracks, but inexplicably hits a dead end on the road they were just driving on. That’s when the first attack happens.
The four barely escape, and then they realize the road rolls without end through a forest with no border. Their Jeep Cherokee runs without gas. Nobody gets hungry or thirsty. They don’t really need sleep, even though the endless travel and emotional strain has everybody looking pretty exhausted along the way. The group can stop and stretch their legs for 90 seconds at a time before they can hear their attackers catching up and have to hit the road again. The four friends take turns driving in shifts.
Cinematographers Jazleana Jones and Evan Draper manage to make the inside of a Jeep Cherokee, endless green woods, and a single black ribbon of road look interesting over almost 90 minutes. There’s a violet sunset, trees swaying in the breeze, a closeup on a doodle made by a greasy finger on a car window, the nighttime road unspooling endlessly in the headlights. One upside-down shot reminded me of the opening of Ari Aster’s Midsommar, and the repetitive rushing by of the trees outside the jeep’s windows serves as a ticking clock in this film about space and time, existential meaning, and pure absurdity.
Trapped in this liminal highway with no exits, no turns, and no explanation, the friends cycle through denial, bargaining, rage and resignation. Is this purgatory? A curse? Are they already dead? The film shifts gears after its horror-movie first act, transforming from a monster movie in a parallel dimension to a meditation on the meaning of life and the absurdity of the human condition. The four friends debate philosophy, rehash old grievances, explore the woods for clues, and slowly reckon with the possibility that the road is all there is.
This movie is totally dependent on its script and the actors’ performances. The writing is mostly to blame for the fact that this film is sometimes as stone-cold boring as being trapped in a car with these characters forever. Ullom’s dialogue varies from conversations that aren’t as clever as he may think to emotional releases that feel forced and unearned. They often fit the harrowing situation, but the characters and the plot don’t bring the audience along. As a result, viewers can’t really connect to the only dynamic aspect of the film besides the car — the characters themselves.
Mitchell Cole is the strongest actor of the bunch but has limited screen time. Noah Toth is game as Fisher, but between his whining and panic attacks audiences might rather see Fischer left in the woods. We’re never given any reason to like him or his flatly rendered friends and their annoying conversations.
If It Ends wanted to be a horror film it would have to be scary. It’s not. If it wants to be a deep philosophical film it has to be smart. It isn’t. The horror.
It Ends opened in theaters Aug. 21.
Joe Nolan is a critic, columnist and performing singer/songwriter based in East Nashville. Find out more about his projects at www.joenolan.com.