Road to Nowhere
Lately, it seems as if all horror movies need to be about something. Is this the genre filmmakers’ version of “we demand to be taken seriously”? Or a cynical response by the studios to the rise of "elevated horror" in the 2010s? Writer-director Alexander Ullom’s It Ends, now in theaters, is very clearly about something, but that something is purposely hard to identify, a welcome ambiguity in an unsubtle film landscape. The plot is pitchable enough; four Gen Z friends in Florida go out to grab a bite only to end up on a never-ending road, doomed to drive forever or get swallowed up by a nameless, faceless horde at the side of the road. It Ends is Ullom’s first full-length, picked up by Neon at last year’s South by Southwest. It feels like a true first film, bursting with style and tricks while keeping its audience at arm’s length.
Between It Ends and Late Fame, which I covered for the Chicago Reader last week, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about myself at 22. Fresh out of college and in an actively crumbling relationship, I was eager to dive into… I guess anything that felt like it could give me purpose. I was also holding myself back, afraid to put too much of myself into anything, whether that was art, work, or relationships. The aforementioned romantic relationship fell apart less than three months after we graduated college, and not long after that, the COVID-19 pandemic hit the US.
What does any of this have to do with the movie where the car ride never stops?The friends at the center of It Ends are in that same tenuous beginning stage of adulthood that I’ve been thinking of, and the film is very much about staring down that barrel. The movie opens with the group moving James, a withdrawn smartass played by Phinehas Yoon, into his first solo apartment post-graduation. They finish off, pile into a white Jeep and bicker and meme each other as they take off on an endless drive. Day (Akira Jackson) and Fisher (Noah Toth) are recent graduates as well, whereas Tyler (Mitchell Cole) joined the Armed Forces at 18 and is now working in HVAC. While they exhibit the true affection of four longtime friends, it is clear that they’re tied together by obligation at this point. A few minutes into the drive, Day’s Apple Map becomes unreliable, Tyler attempts to turn back, and they are then infinitely lost.
Ullom’s script comments on itself, as James insists on trying to make meaning out of their circumstance while the others just adapt. Without giving too much away, James sticks to his guns, eventually, finding that his obstinance was quite literally all for nothing. Your early 20s are a minefield, and the best defense that you can have is a community of people who love you, can commiserate with you, and most of all, call you out. James learns that lesson the hard way, and the ending of It Ends suggests that he won’t keep trying to go it alone from there on out.
The beginning of my “real life” and the onset of COVID are inextricably linked for me. As soon as I started establishing myself, the road ahead of me appeared desolate. My peers and I had to figure out how to handle various rites of passage after a significant cultural rupture. Alexander Ullom is 27, so he probably graduated college into the “post-COVID” (there is no post) economic/cultural hellscape that has allowed the worst elements of our culture to fester. That sheer nihilism felt all-encompassing in 2021, and it still does to this day. Can you imagine how infinite that road might feel to today’s 22 year-olds? It Ends is an effective psychological thriller, taking a solid crack at dramatizing Gen Z and Gen Alpha’s social inheritance. Ullom knows what he’s doing, and It Ends bodes well for what he might make on a larger canvas.
