Every few years, the festival circuit does exactly what it’s supposed to do: discover an exciting new talent working within the confines of indie filmmaking in a way that feels legitimately fresh and innovative. Young filmmaker Alexander Ullom proves that he is that talent with his directorial debut It Ends, a true independent film that subverts expectations and feels subtly clever.
It Ends Review
It Ends follows four friends who find themselves in a strange dilemma: they miss their turn and end up on a road that seemingly never ends, trapped with no way out and no one but themselves and the sinister forces lurking in the woods. Ullom’s horror/thriller/psychological drama feels like it could be a lost episode of The Twilight Zone but for Gen Z, using its high-concept sci-fi premise to capture the anxieties of a generation that grew up in a post-COVID world.
Ullom wisely eschews the religious and moral quandaries that would typically be explored through a concept like this. At first, the characters do ask the obvious questions like, “Is this Hell?” or “What did I do to deserve this?” but they quickly move on from these tropes. This allows It Ends to feel refreshingly unique, differentiating itself from its most obvious comparisons like Sartre and Alighieri.
Instead, Ullom seems much more interested in exploring themes that would feel more at place in a coming-of-age dramedy than a horror picture: growing up, struggling to find purpose, drifting apart from those we used to love. Yet the fact that these themes are explored in such a different way than we are used to seeing is precisely what makes them so resonant.
The first thirty or so minutes of It Ends are genuinely terrifying. Ullom does an excellent job of straddling the line between the real and the surreal in his threat, creating an antagonistic force for the first third that creates a sinking feeling of darkness and despair in the viewer’s gut. Partner that with strong cinematography (the use of darkness is excellent, especially for a first-time filmmaker) and an intense score by Matthew Robert Cooper, and you have an effectively claustrophobic chiller.
It Ends is not the first movie set primarily in a car to extensively use virtual production techniques (aka “The Volume” — the same technology used to shoot The Mandalorian and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania), but it does a good job of using these constraints to its advantage. Ullom has created a paradox of sorts in his world-building: an endlessly winding road that also feels entrapping. Yet, he achieves a very effective balance between these seemingly conflicting ideas in a very compelling way.
That being said, what makes It Ends so effective is not how scary it is, but how effectively it invests the audience in the central relationship between the four characters. Ullom does not feel the need to resort to exposition through flashbacks or reminiscing about the “good ol’ days,” choosing to throw us into this lived-in relationship instead. The result is characters that feel much less archetypal than usual and a dynamic that is much easier to root for.
The four central performances — all from relative unknowns — are also quite strong. Of course, the lack of star power is likely as much out of necessity as it is out of intention, but it does feel as if It Ends would not work quite as well were its roles played by A-listers. Phinehas Yoon, Akira Jackson, Noah Toth, and Mitchell Cole all give refreshingly egoless performances, imbuing the characters with the type of “everyman,” relatable quality that Ullom is clearly striving for.
Is It Ends worth watching?
It Ends has the potential to be an indie horror breakout on the level of something like Talk to Me. It’s creative, smart, and — most importantly — genuinely scary and fun. Alexander Ullom has made one of the most exciting genre debuts in recent memory; let’s just hope it gets the platform it deserves so we can see more from this promising new talent.
It Ends premiered at the 2025 SXSW Film Festival, which ran March 7-15 in Austin, TX.
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