IT ENDS (2025)

3 stars

Signature Entertainment. Digital. October 5th. Blu Ray November 23rd.

A group of youngsters are setting off on a journey. Inane chatter. There is James (Phinehas Yoon), female Day (Akira Jackson), Fisher (Noah Toth) and Tyler (Mitchell Cole) driving. They talk about what is going on in their lives. Catching up.

Travelling along remote roads. They seem to be in the middle of nowhere. A forested area. Their Satnav says to go straight but Tyler thinks they could be lost so he pulls a u-turn to try and find a turning that he is convinced they missed. It’s now dark. Slams the brakes on as they reach a dead end.

With torch in hand Tyler searches the woods when suddenly they are attacked by a horde of people! Why? I have no idea and it won’t be any clearer by the time you get to the end of this movie.

They keep endlessly driving, for days, on a road to nowhere, as Talking Heads would say. If they stop for more than a minute and a half they are swarmed by the mysterious mass, who just come barrelling out of the trees.

What is happening? Are they trapped on this endless highway. Where are they? Will they run out of petrol as night turns to day and back again. Are they dead? Cursed? In a purgatory? Are they blame for the position they are now in?

Writer/director Alexander Ullom has crafted an intriguing Twilight Zone scenario and the acting is strong with natural sounding dialogue, however this would probably have worked better as a short film rather than spun out nearly and hour and a half. This is built around a mystery which it fails to address. There is way too much talking as, with an overstretched central concept. The whole thing ends up being slightly annoying and wilfully enigmatic.

Steve Kirkham