SPOILER ALERT: This article includes details about It Ends, Passenger, and Camp Rock 3.
It Ends… or does it?
Following the success of Backrooms and Obsession, director Alex Ullom is the latest to jump on the horror auteur train with It Ends.
It Ends premiered at SXSW earlier and currently sits at 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. Marking Ullom’s feature directorial debut, this microbudget horror, distributed by Neon, has a modest price tag of $80,000 and opened in Los Angeles and New York this past weekend on five screens and raked in $60,000 before it expands nationwide on August 28. It will more than likely make back its money and more. Impressive for Ullom’s first theatrical release. (Shout out to Executive Producers Jess Wu and Keith Calder of Blindspotting fame)
While researching this movie, it was difficult to find a solid track of information because every time I attempted to look up anything on Google, I would often be led to that insufferable movie It Ends With Us. Barf.
Nonetheless, It Ends has the potential to join Backrooms and Obsession in this current movement of young filmmakers releasing a film that’s outside of the merger chaos of the studio system.
Neon and Ullom had a focus and are being intentional with what they are doing with It Ends. Before its limited release, It Ends became the first title from the Unreleased Gems section of the Letterboxd Video Store. The movie was available for a limited amount of time before Neon scooped it up. In fact, it should be noted that nearly half of the Unreleased Gems in the Video Store have been picked up for distribution.
It Ends follows three friends James (Phinehas Yoon — a standout performance), Day (Akira Jackson), Fisher (Noah Toth), and Tyler (Mitchell Cole) – who are reunited after college graduation. While driving, the four think that they missed a turn when, in fact, they have found themselves on a Möbius strip of a road that leads to nowhere. If they stop, they are endangered of getting attacked by a random horde of people. They have to literally keep driving on this never-ending road in order to survive.
It’s like Groundhog Day of road trip hell.
It Ends brings existential crises to the forefront, using this long stretch of road as an allegory for life. Some people in the car – mostly James – feel like this wooded road trip of infinite sadness means something. He thinks there is something at the end that will make it all worth it. Meanwhile, the others — mainly Tyler — aren’t convinced and think this road trip is meaningless, random, and cruel. Fisher and Day represent the middle-of-the-road folks who have accepted the hopelessness.
Throughout the film, they cycle through all the stages of grief repeatedly: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The extreme close-ups provide a wild, claustrophobic environment, stuffing you into the Jeep with James, Tyler, Day, and Fisher.
The quartet holds the film together as their characters try to accept their devastating fate. You feel their overall descent into mental chaos. At times, it will make you ask “What would I do in this situation?” and it will make you ask “What would I do in this situation?”
Ullom showed restraint for a film that could have been an over-stylized horror extravaganza. There are tons of unanswered questions about this mysterious eternal road of nothingness — but if Ullom gave us answers, I feel like I would be let down.
It Ends is an elevated B-movie, drenched in anxiety, depression, desperation, and sometimes unexpected humor; Ullom’s feature debut leaves a good enough impression to pique your interest in what this filmmaker is capable of.
All I know is that I will never take another Cliff Bar for granted ever again.
The worst road trip Passenger ever!
When I’m not watching the latest films and TV series, I have a piece of entertainment that had a heavy influence on my formative years and beyond. As of late, the original Beverly Hills 90210 has been in heavy rotation, and I must say that they really put Brenda through it, and the horniest people in the series were the nerdiest: Andrea and Brandon.
There is an episode titled “Camping Trip” (Season 2, Episode 7 to be exact. Aired August 29, 1991), in which the gang goes on a road trip to Yosemite. It could have easily been a cabin-in-the-woods horror.
That being said, the road trip horror genre is having a moment. In addition to It Ends, Paramount released Passenger, directed by André Øvredal and starring Jacob Scipio, Lou Llobell and Melissa Leo.
Passenger follows a couple living that van life. Unlike the folks in It Ends, the couple chose to endlessly be on the road. After they are witness to an accident on the highway, a demonic entity latches onto their lives and ruins their road trip.
It’s giving Smile meets Jeepers Creepers with a smidge of Final Destination.
Passenger can be added to the pile of run-of-the-mill thriller/horror — but I appreciated the stunt casting of Melissa Leo. It seemed like she was in it for a hot 7 minutes until her head was ripped off.
Passenger is formulaic, the world building is half-baked, and it relies more on jump scares than actual story. It is a tolerable movie that will be great to watch on a plane.
I have never watched a Camp Rock movie. One night, while winding down with my pre-slumber indica, I decided to use Camp Rock 3 as a bedtime story. I don’t know why. It was just calling my name.
There are two things that I know about Disney’s Camp Rock franchise. The Jonas Brothers and Demi Lovato starred in the very first one in 2008.
Sixteen years later, Shane, Nate, and Jason Gray of Connect 3 (Joe, Nick, and Kevin Jonas), are back with their manager Lark (Sherry Cola) While Mitchie (Demi Lovato) and Connie Torres (Maria Canals-Barrera) return for the legacy sequel which introduces us to a brand new batch of artsy camp divas including Liamani Segura, Malachi Barton, Lumi Pollack, and Ava Jean, as well as Hudson Stone, Casey Trotter and Brooklynn Pitts who star in the new pilot for The Mickey Mouse Club reboot.
The young actors step into variations of Breakfast Club-type tropes: the rebel, the weird one, the nerd, the prom queen, and the jock. They know the assignment and do it well.
Listen. I know exactly what kind of movie this is. The Disney Channel and its adjacent saccharine-injected territories aren’t anything but consistent with the smiley and brighty content that serves to the masses. It’s G-rated, polished, and filled with that signature, feel-good, hyper Mouse House tone and pacing. It’s corny — but sometimes we need a little bit of corn in our lives.
