Alex Ullom’s six-year journey to It Ends
Before Alex Ullom became the young filmmaker behind one of 2026’s most talked-about horror releases, he was a recent film-school graduate with an unusual screenplay. The story followed four college students driving towards their next chapter, only for them to become trapped on a road that ignores the normal rules of space and time.
The project began during the 2020 COVID quarantine. Ullom spent long stretches playing online poker in a virtual-reality Oculus app, but he was also using those anonymous rooms to look for potential investors. One conversation eventually changed the film’s prospects: a fellow player said he had worked on visual effects for Guillermo del Toro’s films, wanted to produce, and offered Ullom $10,000 despite the movie not yet being financed.
From a first cut to a cinema release
Ullom shot the first version of It Ends in 2022. After showing an early cut to investors, he asked for funding to reshoot much of the film. The revised movie premiered at SXSW in 2025, reached the Letterboxd Video Store digitally in December that year, and was later acquired by Neon. The distributor recognised its potential as another unconventional low-budget horror success.
It Ends opened in cinemas on 21 August 2026. Ullom is cautious about comparisons with Gen Z horror filmmakers Curry Barker, director of Obsession, and Kane Parsons, known for Backrooms. He points out that both developed their skills through years of YouTube work, while It Ends was assembled over six years. He compares his film more closely with Barker’s first feature, Milk and Cereal, and remains surprised that his project reached theatres.
A road movie disguised as horror
Although the film uses unsettling situations, Ullom describes it as a contest between a horror movie and a hangout movie. James, Day, Fisher and Tyler, played by Phinehas Yoon, Akira Jackson, Noah Toth and Mitchell Cole, spend most of the 89-minute runtime inside a car, trying to understand their predicament while finding ways to pass the time.
One early distraction is a meme-like thought experiment: choose two defences against 10,000 rats, 50 hawks, five gorillas or one man with a gun. Once the group loses its internet connection, the characters create their own memes, turning the strange journey into a mixture of anxiety, boredom and dark humour.
The finished film contains considerably less internet-culture material than earlier versions. Ullom says an eight-minute discussion about the Russian brick video was removed, even though he liked the scene. At one stage, the movie had grown to three hours; Ullom admits that version was much worse.
What does It Ends mean?
Ullom prefers audiences to experience It Ends with minimal information, but he sees the film as a metaphor for Gen Z entering adulthood in a world that no longer operates according to familiar expectations. After university, the characters are searching for a workable direction, and the endless road transforms that uncertainty into something strange and threatening.
“We’ve been given directions to destinations that don’t exist anymore.”
For Ullom, older structures such as the nuclear family, home ownership and religion have weakened or disappeared. He describes the present as a prolonged transition between one state and another, and suggests that liminal spaces can offer an unexpected sense of comfort. That idea places the film alongside other stories that turn ordinary locations into endless, disorienting environments.
Fans interested in how games use repetition, uncertainty and confined spaces can explore RETROCADE’s arcade blog and arcade videos for more interactive entertainment coverage.
A higher power and a distant sequel
Ullom is not yet revealing the literal explanation behind the road, although he confirms that he believes a higher power is influencing events. The characters’ names are also deliberate: each represents a different philosophical position, including ways of dealing with meaninglessness as a young person.
The director says the full explanation may have to wait 15 years, when he hopes to make a sequel. He describes the planned follow-up as his Before Sunrise: the same characters would return in late adulthood, shifting the focus from the uncertainties of early adulthood to a later stage of life.
The rats, hawks, gorillas or gun question
Asked which option he would choose in the film’s survival scenario, Ullom says the answer depends on the surroundings. If the animals appeared directly in front of him, he would choose the rats and gorillas. In his apartment, however, he believes the man with a gun and the hawks would be in serious trouble. For Ullom, the environment changes everything.
It Ends is in cinemas now. RETROCADE readers who enjoy unusual road-trip concepts and surreal game spaces can also browse the arcade machine buying guide when planning a home gaming setup.
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