It Ends – Review

It’s road trip time! Young early-twenty-somethings James (Yoon), Day (Jackson), Fisher (Toth) and Tyler (Cole) are all crammed into a Jeep Cherokee with Florida plates, and headed through the city to find some chow. They all just helped James move into his apartment, and are out for a late-night food trip as a reward. The banter begins immediately as the friends are happy to hang out with each other before their lives ultimately pull them in separate ways, as it does for people of that age.

They cruise along, bickering and teasing, and telling stories, or presenting outlandish scenarios to choose from. Pick two, they will defend you, and the rest are coming to kill you: 50 hawks, 10,000 rats, 5 gorillas and 1 man with a gun. This is a tough choice! Can you kill a hawk with your bare hands, or will the bird of prey carve you up?! Day talks over her possible job prospects. Tyler drives.

A turn on to the forest road takes them deep into night driving, as they follow their map. Conversation continues. Then… after a decent clip of time, they wonder, did they miss a turn? This two-lane forest road seems to just go on and on… It’s a nice enough drive, with trees and foliage all around, but no, they must have missed their exit route. Tyler however is sure they have passed no other roads. They must have gone past it. He flips around to try and make it back to a known area. Then, they hit a dead end?! What is going on? Isn’t this where they turned in?

Things get stranger, and scarier. Existential dread hits the group, as they attempt to reconcile with whatever is happening to them on this long forest drive. As new threats set in, they realize they are limited in their choices, and are on a dangerous path. Something has happened on this trip, and no one is really sure what, or how best to deal with it, and there appears to be no way out.

For me, this film was a good watch with a very simple plot. It introduces interesting concepts to consider, especially if one wound up in the same situation. The acting was certainly solid enough, and most of the script was decent, considering it is primarily dialogue from a younger college-ish age crowd. The entertainment value will vary per viewer, and some may be turned off by the overall resolution, but the runtime is short so it’s worth a check if you are into the strange premise at all.