It Ends review
Death is a highway too.
It Ends
Directed by Alex Ullom
Written by Alex Ullom
Starring Mitchell Cole, Akira Jackson, Noah Toth and Phinehas Yoon
It Ends Review
This review is a little late. No, I’m not talking about it popping up over a day after it screened as part of Regal Mystery Movies/AMC Screen Unseen. Although…that would be true to. I’m talking about it being over nine months after I should have had a review up after It Ends aired as part of 2025’s Anomaly Film Festival. It Ends was the closing feature at the festival last November…but I had to leave that morning, so it wasn’t a part of my coverage. I heard nothing but good things about the movie…and heard soon after that it was being picked up by NEON for theatrical release. What I didn’t know was that it would take so long for that release to come to fruition. The movie will finally hit theaters everywhere this weekend…after hitting theaters most places in those mystery movie/screen unseen slots.
Strange release patterns aside…It Ends is an interesting case study in critical appraisal vs. mass audience appeal. This comes up occasionally but probably not as often as you’d think. What I’m talking about is a somewhat extreme divide between the two camps. It happens in horror and comedy more often than in other genres. People generally agree when a sci-fi movie doesn’t work or when a drama is boring. Comedy is so objective that consensus is rare. You know someone whose favorite movie is a comedy you think is terrible and unfunny. Everyone does. Horror is a different animal. Because horror is the most open to interpretation.
If you made a word cloud about horror the biggest word you’d see is “Scary”. But movies don’t need to be scary to be considered horror. Comedies need to be funny. The subjectiveness comes from whether you find it funny…not in its intention. Horror movies don’t always intend to be scary because scary is a narrow view of what horror can be. “Disturbing” would be another big word on the cloud. So would “gross” and “unnerving”. The reason that “Scary” is the biggest word in the cloud isn’t just because most horror movies at least try to contain some frightening stuff…but because it is, by far, what casual viewers most expect from a movie labeled “horror”.
You have to be careful with both critical evaluations and casual ones. But the critical ones, at least, mostly come from the same place. While plenty of grifters make their living being negative for the sake of negativity or fighting some culture war only they know the constantly shifting rules of…most critics evaluate films as art. How does it make you feel…what is it trying to say and how well does it manage to say it…let’s look deeply into the technique.
Audiences do the same thing whether they know it or not…they just put the emphasis on different things. Namely…how entertained was I. It’s one of the toughest parts of film criticism. Sometimes I like movies a lot more than I think they’re good. Hell, some of my favorite movies are objectively bad ones. But I sure am entertained by them. I’m not going to tell you that Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers is a good movie. It’s not. But I love it.
That’s the simplistic way of looking at audiences vs critics. Audiences only care about the technique and intention to a certain extent. Critics have to at least partially separate personal feelings though doing so completely strips the humanity from the work…and you can find plenty of AI generated websites that do that. This is true of all genres…but it’s truer of horror than anything else. Because some people, and critics, simply hate horror. Or, at least, have an extremely narrow view of how it works.
The Regals and AMCs of the world even changed their mystery movie policies because of it. The contract between the studios taking part in the concept had a flaw when it came to horror. If you don’t tell the casual audience buying a ticket they’re going to see a horror movie…a very large portion of them will be angry. Social media will be flooded with negative reactions from attendees simply because, through no fault of their own, they don’t like horror. It’s the exact opposite of what studios are hoping for. So, theater chains now label which mystery movies cross a threshold into what they feel people will consider horror. What does any of this have to do with It Ends? Well…the label knife cuts two ways.
It Ends currently has an extremely positive critical reception. It also has seen a noticeable negative reaction from people who attended the mystery movie screening. It’s another label problem…but the problem isn’t with the label. Yes, It Ends is a horror film. No, It Ends is not what casual audiences would consider horror. It isn’t scary or gross. It isn’t gory or disturbing. And it isn’t intending to be. This is why the divide is happening. I recently reviewed Buffet Infinity on the site. I think it is one of the best movies of the year. And I noted that I could never recommend it to anyone. Not because I don’t have conviction in that belief…because it is so good at what it intends to do that most people will absolutely hate it. It’s 100% on Rotten Tomatoes with critics. It’s at 44% user score on The Movie Database.
It Ends won’t be that extreme. Critics have locked it into the 90s of critical approval. This review will also be positive. Large sections of the audience will walk away from a screening wondering why. Well, I’ve explained why throughout this long preamble. It’s an issue of expectation vs. intent. When someone buys a ticket for a horror movie and it doesn’t contain any of those large words in their word cloud…they’re more likely to think it’s a bad movie.
But every movie has an audience. Consider Buffet Infinity as an example. I find it hard to imagine a lot of people would walk out of a screening saying “wow…that was great”. But midnight movie lovers who appreciate experimental films might. Audiences with a deeper relationship with horror might feel the same about It Ends. I’m talking about independent horror fans who do focus more on technique and intent than others. The ones who know horror is the most boundless of genres when it comes to rules and categorization. Basically, anyone who found this review.
The plot of It Ends is incredibly simple. The execution is too. Despite what the plot summary might lead you to believe…it’s a lot more The Long Walk than it is a cosmic Lost Highway. Four young people in a car…on a road to nowhere with no exits. That’s all that’s there on the surface. And the surface is where people looking to be entertained often stop. But, like The Long Walk, many won’t consider it to even be a horror movie. You’d normally think that would give It Ends a leg up with casual audiences. But this isn’t a movie with more broad appeal than a horror movie…it’s actually the opposite. It’s for viewers who are open to a larger distinction of what horror actually is.
This is a movie about acceptance. It’s a story about people. And it’s a really good one. It’s also a movie that takes place in one location…even if it happens to be (seemingly) infinite. You’re going to spend nearly the entire runtime sitting in a car driving down an endless road. To their credit, one of the characters picks up on how and why this happened much faster than most movie characters ever do. Because It Ends isn’t a mystery.
In fact, knowing what’s going on is key to what the movie intends to be. And it pulls off that intention beautifully. It makes you feel like you’re a part of a journey no one wants to be on and consider how far down the road you’d be willing to travel. It’s trying to say something, and it manages to do so through a technique that manages to keep the car on the road despite the setup sounding incredibly repetitive. It does feel repetitive eventually. Because it’s supposed to.
And that is why critics are giving it strong reviews. And why wide audiences are unlikely to walk away feeling like they’ve seen a good horror movie…or even a horror movie at all. The good news is that it makes recommending this movie to people incredibly straight forward. Somewhere in that whole mess of discussing types of horror fans and critical appraisal vs. aggregate audience scores you placed yourself somewhere on the map. And you already know whether It Ends is something you should give a chance to or not. Even without having to dive into a discussion of what it is actually about. It isn’t about much. And it’s about everything.
Scare Value
If you’re looking for a great horror movie to watch this weekend, I’d probably suggest heading to Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. I haven’t seen it yet, but the pedigree is fantastic. If you’re looking for a horror movie that fits the word cloud of what people think horror is…I’d probably suggest heading to Insidious: Out of the Further. I don’t personally think the franchise has been very good for a while…but they make a ton of money so they’re doing something right. If you’re looking for something smaller and more intimate…and are open to independent horror on a smaller scale than breakthroughs like Obsession and Backrooms…I’d suggest giving It Ends a try. And…if you’re a real weirdo…Buffet Infinity is now streaming on Shudder.
3.5/5
It Ends Link
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