It Ends (2025) Review

It Ends (2025) Review

From the producers of Backrooms comes a chilling new existential thriller. A group of recent graduates head out on a late-night drive, hoping to enjoy one final hangout before adulthood pulls them apart. Instead, they find themselves trapped on an endless highway where reality begins to unravel and unimaginable horrors await beyond the limits of human understanding.

Starring Mitchell Cole (Against the Spread), Akira Jackson (Against the Spread, Urban Flesh Easters), Noah Toth (Ojai, Senior Prank), Phinehas Yoon (One True Loves). It Ends is written and directed by Alexander Ullom.

One of the film’s biggest strengths is its refreshingly likeable bunch of youngsters. Teen characters can often be spectacularly annoying, but thankfully that isn’t the case here. More importantly, you actually believe these people are friends. That might sound like a low bar, but plenty of films fail to clear it, leaving you wondering why their characters would voluntarily spend five minutes in each other’s company, let alone an entire weekend.

There’s a solid premise at the heart of the film, although unfortunately it begins to run out of juice around the halfway point. It feels as though the writing team had a terrific central idea but struggled to work out where to take it once that initial concept had been established. There are some effective horror elements, particularly during the early stages, which successfully draw you into the youngsters’ predicament. However, as the group begins to fragment, the horror gradually gives way to drama and existential themes that prove considerably less compelling.

That’s a shame because, for all its shortcomings, this remains a solid little flick. Made on a reported budget of just £50,000, it achieves considerably more than you might expect from such limited resources and often looks like a film with considerably deeper pockets. One online review neatly summed it up as Groundhog Day mixed with It Follows — a description that is difficult to argue with.

At just 27, writer-director Alexander Ullom makes an assured feature debut and marks himself out as a filmmaker worth keeping an eye on. The film does drag during its second half, when conversation increasingly takes precedence over incident and the creeping sense of dread established earlier begins to dissipate. Nevertheless, there’s enough here to suggest that Ullom has the talent to go considerably further with a little more money and, hopefully, a script that maintains its momentum all the way to the finish.

It Ends will be yours to own from October 5. Distributed by Signature Entertainment

YouTube Trailer

Apple pre-order link

https://tv.apple.com/gb/movie/it-ends/umc.cmc.65115jzgtbptl8bi0uhxjso6p