31 Days of Halloween: The End of Oak Street

2026, David Robert Mitchell (It Follows) -- download

Kent.

OK, I didn't get to this immediately after the last movie about a family trapped in their suburban home, but I blame it on my highly-debatable media centre tagging system, which didn't consider this movie as horror -- I definitely do, but I get that most will lump it into the general survival-adventure bucket. Movies are almost always more than a single tag.

I guess I did not read Kent's post closely enough to catch that this movie takes place in ... 1982; late seventies, early 80s is what I was thinking upon gazing at the subdivision layout and construction styles. That is my era, so I was instantly taken back. Mitchell used the same nostalgia in It Follows despite that movie being set in an anachronistic bubble. 

Family drama. Its again centered here. Denise (Anne Hathaway, The Witches; Kent was right -- holy crow she's in a lot of movies in 2026) is a stay-at-home mom, entirely dissatisfied with her current situation, primarily because of her husband Greg (Ewan McGregor, Doctor Sleep), who has told her he would quit his gig jobs once he was hired back, but he keeps on disappearing every night to ... well, deliver pizzas. He's optimistically / obliviously in denial about the tension he is causing. Its 1982, he's stuck in the world of toxic male identity and needing to be seen as the breadwinner and protector of his family. He's not necessarily a Bad Guy, but he has blinders up that is hurting his family. Denise escapes into something that is entirely her own -- a novel she is writing about a ... well, a dissatisfied wife. The kids cannot not notice what is going on between their parents, while dealing with their own shit -- Brian (Christian Convery, Sweet Tooth) is being bullied, and graduating Audrey (Maisy Stella, Nashville) is coming to realize her college dreams are not going to happen.

Then after a long stormy night of bright flashing lights, they awaken to an entirely different world outside -- one that is millions of years in the past. The movie gently (snort, nothing is gentle when its a carnivorous dino) teases out the fact they are in the past, in the Age of Dinosaurs -- hungry hungry dinosaurs. But once we get our first clear view of the feathered ostrich sized raptor thing, we see the entire neighbourhood is fleeing the creatures, and... well, most are not escaping. There is a lot of death in this movie.

So, the family has to pivot from their very personal issues to ones of survival, exceeeept its not like Greg changes the behaviour that has been annoying Denise; in fact, it kind of amplifies it. Stay positive, don't let on how bad things are, protect your family. What Greg feels compelled to do, just pisses the pragmatist & realist in Denise off to no end. 

Then Brian spies his (still alive?!?!) dog out the window and sneaks out of the now fortified house to get him. Audrey observes him, and follows. Its not like the dinosaurs go to sleep universally at night. Going outside is death. They find the lone neighbour Jeanette (Jordan Alex Davis, Thriller) who has lost her parents. And when the parents discover their kids are missing, they head out, barely avoiding death numerous times, but at least they get to observe two dinos humping. Levity; not much of it in this movie. When they all finally reconnect, they still have to get home and along the way... well, Brian is eaten by an Allosaurus. Holy fuck; its horrible and surprising and traumatizing. But at least they got the dog Starbuck back.

And yes, I confirmed Kent's note that the kid Brian liked "Battlestar Galactica" and not, as I assumed, read "Moby-Dick".

So yes, this movie mostly plays as an adventure flick, especially with the ever present bombastic adventure film score, but I still sat it squarely in the horror genre as this movie is not shy about the neighbourhood dying and constantly. Given the star power at play, I assumed none of the family would die, not even the dog. Somebody in the production didn't like cats, as they were seen being eaten far too many times, but yes, even Starbuck survives unscathed. But.... Brian dying was... horrible. The look on Denise's traumatized face, the subsequent freak out, the rethinking of her disputes with him, the loss. I was not expecting it.

Now Denise has to step up and play protector.... OK, I retract that; she didn't have to step up -- she was always a protector. Denise is the one with the gun, she was the one planning to survive almost immediately, not playing the optimistic Greg role of waiting it out, or waiting for help to come. BUT now she is a single parent, and now her only goal is to save her kids. But how? Bubbles of Time is how.

The movie ends on a scifi focus, and a fun little paradox. Timey Wimey Spacey Wavey shit is going on, and the section of the neighbourhood, in a complete sphere, was sucked into the past. But there are other smaller bubbles that lead back to .... well, kind of the same time. Denise and the kids jump into one such winking in and out bubble that takes them back home to the ... night they were taken, but hours before. And so the movie hand-waves away all the horror from before, by having Denise call all the neighbours who we saw die, to get them out of their homes and to safer ground, before the time bubble sucks them all away. AND she gets a pizza delivered by her husband. He is "saved". The movie doesn't care about the paradox created -- previous timeline dad was eaten, but.... they have him back?

I liked the movie, I liked it turning the tables on the whole Jurassic Park comparison. I liked the horror of the experience. There is a little annoyance that Severe Trauma is depicted as wiping away familial issues, and yes, I get that the dramatic trick at play is that all their issues were petty and survival as a family was paramount, but eventually they will be in a place where those things will emerge again. Oh wait, no maybe not, Denise ends up writing a hugely successful novel based on their experience, and they have cashed in.