With the runaway success of Obsession and Backrooms, an up-and-coming generation of filmmakers has been suddenly thrust into the spotlight. Critics and audiences are wondering, with both excitement and trepidation, what these fresh filmmakers have in store. But the summer isn’t over quite yet, and there’s another young director whose debut feature deserves just as much attention as its peers. Coming to theaters August 21, Alex Ullom’s It Ends is about a liminal road trip from hell and how we cope with the stress of the unknown.

After garnering the status of festival darling in 2025, It Ends remained in distribution limbo before Neon picked it up in December of last year. (It was just announced that Neon has also picked up Ullom's sophomore feature, 4 x 4: The Event.)

Now, with its theatrical release finally here, Ullom’s creative spirit remains as restless and tenacious as ever, simultaneously promoting his first film and remaining hard at work on his second. While on break from production on his next project, Ullom took some time to talk to Fango about his journey thus far, and the vague form of his future pursuits.

“We were kind of dead in the market for a little bit if I’m being completely honest,” Ullom says, regarding the time that has passed since the film premiered for festival audiences in 2025. “No one really wanted to take a risk on it.” While disappointing, this certainly isn’t surprising. Ullom’s film met festival audiences in spring of 2025, before Sinners and Weapons, and way before this summer’s horror blockbusters. The general sentiment toward horror has rapidly and dramatically changed since then, but an independent debut by such a young director is still considered a hefty risk.

Rather than let the lack of interest defeat him, however, Ullom dug deeper. “I had a meeting on the Universal Lot, and on the way out, they were doing this press event for Jurassic World. I saw all these movie influencers that I recognized, including Nicolas Curcio.” This certainly wasn’t the first time Ullom recognized the power of social media, having used Instagram to find the cast for It Ends. “I hopped a fence and pretended to be an influencer to get through security guards. I showed a fake Instagram, walked up, and I met these people.”

Remarkably, this worked. Ullom drummed up enough interest to command the buzz of online horror communities. Soon Letterboxd would incorporate It Ends into their rental program, and eventually Neon would lock in as the film’s dedicated distributor. Despite all of his grit, however, he says it’s still difficult to believe the theatrical release is right around the corner. “No one was ever really supposed to see this movie! Even before [South by Southwest], this was the psychotic musings of a twenty-one-year-old depressed kid, and he and his friends learned how to make a movie.”

Indeed, It Ends is transparently personal. Operating just as much as a character study as an interdimensional nightmare, the film focuses on four young adults, fresh out of college. After helping with a move, the four head to the next destination, but cannot find their turn. In fact, they can’t find any turn. Surrounded by wilderness with nothing but the gaping maw of a never-ending road ahead of them, the characters must decide if they should take any action at all other than simply driving.

It’s an intriguing premise, one that might resonate with fans of Backrooms for its use of liminal space—the idea of the familiar suddenly becoming hostile is popular with contemporary horror fans. “I was talking to Kane [Parsons] about this, because I feel like we were in a lot of those similar threads early on,” Ullom says on his interest in the concepts of liminality and Parsons’ work. “Maybe the true nature of reality is the storage closet of an office room. There’s a chance that a parking garage is more of the natural world than any sort of purpose. And I think for young people, that is their world.”

The characters in It Ends are also forced to come to terms with each other just as much as they do with the horrors around them. Ullom has described this idea on multiple occasions as “hangout horror.” “Trying to hang out in the face of insurmountable stress and terror is something of a universal experience right now, and you could sort of do that with anything.” Leaning on these elements would be a gamble for any movie, but for this film, it’s an endearing trademark. “I always thought of this movie as if Richard Linklater made a horror movie,” Ullom says. “That’s how I pitched it very early on.”

So much rides on the main characters in It Ends—their arcs inform the story and the performances fill most of the space. There’s a lot of pressure on the actors to do well and understand their characters, and Ullom doesn’t take that for granted. “This movie only fully works because of the miracle performances by the cast. They’re all so talented.” When asked about any key lessons taken from It Ends to be applied to future projects, Ullom was keen to point out, “Your actors really are your movie.”

The lessons surely don’t stop there. In the midst of production for his second film, Ullom says It Ends would become the most vital form of education to his experience as a filmmaker. “I’ve already said this, but Kane honed his craft on YouTube over all his videos. Curry Barker did too when he made Milk & Serial. It Ends is my Milk & Serial. This is my thing that I scrapped together over the course of six years, and fully learned how to make a movie.”

In spite of this, Ullom is clearly excited to be working on something new. Things have changed since last year’s film festivals. “I will say this: up until the script got picked up, I was literally living in a one bedroom apartment with four other guys, and I was sleeping in the walk-in closet of the bedroom. It’s not as bad as that sounds. It made rent in LA affordable. But I’ve got my own place now, and that’s probably been the biggest upgrade.” His work has also earned him a certain amount of benefits that were not available before. “It’s surreal to make a movie and, you know, I don’t have to wrap the grip truck. That’s cool. Or my producer doesn’t also have to be my production designer—shoutout Carrie Carusone!”

With his newfound resources, Ullom's ambition has only grown, and his next project is something worlds apart from It Ends in terms of style. He cites Gaspar Noe, Terrence Malick, and Neon Genesis Evangelion as his current inspirations. “I mention Gaspar Noe specifically because I’m playing with the idea of visual overload right now. This next film is almost the exact opposite of It Ends in visual function.”

Ullom continues to pursue his craft at an exciting time for young filmmakers, and it makes sense that he's particularly sensitive to the changes in attitude happening in the film industry right now. But when asked about how he feels about receiving attention for his status as a Gen Z filmmaker, he laughs and says, “I guess I haven’t considered myself that fully because I haven’t technically had a movie come out yet.”

Regardless of how he may feel, he recognizes how important these changes are. “The specific infrastructure of the theater system and Hollywood in general has been so gatekept. Hollywood Reporter was running articles about how they weren’t making space for new talent seven years ago. It’s been an issue for a while. It literally had to get to a boiling point—a Gen Z movie had to beat Star Wars for them to be like, ‘Alright, it’s over. We’re done. Let the kids in. It’s over.’ And I think that’s awesome.” Whatever his role in tomorrow’s filmmaking landscape might be, he is as enthusiastic as ever. “I see theaters as the last religious experience Gen Z has. I think it’s great. I think it’s also great that there’s going to be more specific tailored voices and new talent. Whether I get to be a part of that or not, I’m just happy that it’s happening.”

Eyes on the horizon, Ullom still relishes in speaking to the works that inspired It Ends as well. “Shoutout Two-Lane Blacktop, which I think is the greatest road movie of all time. Holy shit that movie is in my top five.” The road trip movie is a sacred American tradition in cinema, and Ullom’s film is a malicious foil to that tradition while still maintaining the vital element of self-discovery. “Obviously it’s a little bit fucked up, but America’s going through its own transformation right now. I would say that this is probably what it looks like to drive through there. It’s a lot of terrified nervous systems and uncaring, hostile powers that can’t really be processed.”

It Ends is a great representation of how intimidated Gen Z audiences in particular must feel in the face of adulthood, at the prospect of taking on new responsibilities, many of which they didn’t ask for. “I do know that this film is about a lot of the specific things that young people are going through—inheriting what is essentially an ever-moving world. I’m an optimist, but you know … [laughs] things are odd right now! Things could be better, is probably how I’d say it.” But Gen Z audiences aren’t the only ones familiar with these anxieties. “Only now, six years later, am I fully understanding the universality of that experience, and what I was really trying to say when I was operating from such a physiological place.”

Despite the dark places this film came from and its being referred to as nihilistic, Ullom has a much more uplifting takeaway he’s happy to share. “It’s kind of dunking in the face of nihilism. There’s also a missed perception of what nihilism means. Hypothetically, at the end of nihilism, there is also a level of how you’re supposed to keep going, and you’re free.”

Perhaps the most heartwarming messages from It Ends, however, have been the ones reflected back at Ullom. “I get these long DMs on Instagram that are like, ‘Hey, this movie really helped me move through my teenage depression’ … I am grateful for every single person who has ever even watched this movie because it shouldn’t exist in the first place. I’m grateful for the people who champion the film and anyone who has supported that journey.”

There’s obviously a lot to be celebrated, even while surrounded by the faceless threats closing in on all sides of the road. Free from the walk-in closet and right back to the work he does best, Ullom has a lot to be proud of, and it’s definitely worth hopping the fence at a Universal Lot for.

#it ends

This New Horror Movie Is A Directorial Debut Deserving Of Your Attention

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