Somewhere between “Groundhog Day” and a real-life nightmare commute, Neon has found its newest horror hook: a road trip that never ends. The studio dropped the official trailer for “It Ends” this week, confirming an August 21 theatrical release, according to Bloody Disgusting.
The film follows four recent college graduates on what should be one last hangout before life pulls them apart — a late-night food run that instead turns onto a two-lane road with no exit, surrounded by cosmic horrors and the occasional attack from other stranded travelers, according to Showbiz Junkies. Trapped together in a Jeep Cherokee, the group has to decide whether to keep fighting to escape or settle into their new, endless reality.
Behind the Wheel
Alex Ullom makes his feature directorial debut with “It Ends,” which he also wrote and edited. The film stars Phinehas Yoon, Akira Jackson, Noah Toth, and Mitchell Cole, IndieWire reports.Carrie Carusone and Evan Barber produce — the same team behind this year’s horror hit “Backrooms” — and the connection isn’t subtle; the film’s poster reportedly leans on that shared producer credit as a selling point, per IndieWire. Musician Matthew Robert Cooper, who records as Eluvium, composed the score, according to Dark Horizons.
A Head Start on the Trend
Ullom actually wrote the script eight years ago, according to Gizmodo, well before “liminal space” horror — stories set in eerie, in-between locations — became one of the genre’s defining trends this decade. The film premiered at SXSW in March 2025 to strong reviews, later playing Sitges, Overlook, and Fantasia, and currently holds a 100% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes, according to FirstShowing.net. It also had a brief life as a rental title on Letterboxd’s newly launched Video Store before Neon picked it up for a full theatrical release.
Ullom has described the film as being less about the horror on screen and more about how people learn to live alongside it, joking that he’s always wanted to see the family from “Hereditary” give a post-game interview like nothing happened, per Bloody Disgusting.
Where It Fits
Neon is positioning “It Ends” as its answer to A24’s “Backrooms” success, betting that the same appetite for eerie, contained horror concepts extends from haunted hallways to open roads, according to Yahoo Entertainment. Neon has already picked up Ullom’s next project, “4 X 4: The Event.”
“It Ends” opens in New York and Los Angeles on August 21 before expanding nationwide the following week
