Editorial · Article
It Ends (2026): Neon's Road-Trip Horror, and Is It Scary?
In US theaters August 21, 2026 · Neon · Directed by Alexander Ullom
By Alan Willey ·
It Ends opens in US theaters on Friday, August 21, 2026, distributed by Neon. It is the first feature from writer-director Alexander Ullom, who also edited it. Four recent college graduates head out on a late-night drive and turn onto a two-lane road that does not end. The highway loops back on itself and the miles never lead anywhere. Something on the road comes for them whenever they stop. Ullom has described the film as "hangout horror," built as much around the four friends in the car as around the threat outside it. It Ends premiered at SXSW in March 2025 and spent more than a year on the festival circuit before Neon set a theatrical date. The reception has been split. Critics who saw it were close to unanimous, with a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score across 24 reviews and an 8.0 average. The wider audience has been more divided, with an early IMDb user score of 5.7. Both samples are small and predate the theatrical release. What most reviews single out is the ending, which is deliberately ambiguous, and which viewers tend to either find earned or find frustrating. We have not seen It Ends yet, and we score films only after watching them. It opens in August, and predictions on Watch Darkly stay open until it does. If you want to call its score before release, you can log your prediction on the film page.
View on Watch Darkly →
Quick facts
- Releases
- Director
- Alexander Ullom
- Studio
- Neon
- Runtime
- 1h 29m
- Rating
- R
- Cast
- Phinehas Yoon, Akira Jackson, Noah Toth, Mitchell Cole
- Streaming
- Theatrical only at launch (Neon, August 21, 2026). No streaming or rental date announced for the wide release.
Release details
It Ends premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival on March 7, 2025. After its festival run it had a limited digital window through the Letterboxd Video Store in December 2025, a 48-hour rental that closed in early January 2026. Neon then acquired the film and scheduled a wide US theatrical release for August 21, 2026.
The film runs 89 minutes and is rated R. Alexander Ullom directed it from his own script and edited it himself. The four leads are Phinehas Yoon, Akira Jackson, Noah Toth, and Mitchell Cole, none of them established names at the time of release.
What is It Ends about?
Four recent college graduates take a late-night drive for food, planning one last hangout before they split up for good. They turn off the main road and end up on a two-lane highway that has no end. The landscape outside the car loops back on itself. Other people turn up on the road, some lost and some hostile, and the group settles into a grim routine of resting and staying alive while the miles add up toward nothing.
The horror is the situation more than any single monster. Ullom uses the endless road as a stand-in for the open stretch after graduation, when the path forward stops being laid out for you. Reviewers have read it as a film about purpose and drift, about what people do when the structure of their life falls away. It keeps its specifics vague on purpose, which is part of why the ending divides viewers.
The critic and audience split
Critics who caught It Ends on the festival circuit were close to unanimous. It holds a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes from 24 reviews, with an average rating of 8.0 out of 10, and trade and genre outlets praised it as inventive and assured for a first feature.
General-audience reaction has run cooler. The early IMDb user score sits around 5.7. On Letterboxd, where the audience skews toward film enthusiasts, reactions run warmer and closer to the critics. The gap mostly comes down to expectation. It Ends is sold on a high-concept horror hook, but it spends much of its runtime as a quiet character piece and ends on a question rather than an answer, so viewers who came for a conventional road-horror thriller are the ones most likely to bounce off it. All of these numbers come from small, pre-wide-release samples and may move once the film opens.
Is It Ends scary?
By most accounts It Ends is not a jump-scare movie. Reviews describe a strong scare or two early on, then a shift into something quieter that runs on dread rather than shocks. The fear comes from the situation and its repetition, not from the soundtrack spiking.
It is also light on gore. The emphasis is on atmosphere and a mounting sense of being trapped with no way off the road. We have not scored It Ends on Watch Darkly yet, because we score films only after watching them. Once we have, the Fear and Atmosphere numbers will be on the film page.
Alexander Ullom's debut and the Neon pickup
It Ends is Alexander Ullom's first feature. He wrote and directed the film and edited it himself. He made it on a small budget with a largely unknown cast. He has used the phrase "hangout horror" for what he was after, a horror film that gives as much weight to the friendship in the car as to the threat outside it.
Neon acquiring the film fits the distributor's pattern. Neon has built its horror reputation on specific, director-driven films rather than franchise product, and Longlegs and the recent Leviticus are two recent bets in that mold. A debut feature with a festival record and a strong critic response is the kind of title Neon tends to buy and then market hard.
Related films on Watch Darkly
The Endless(2017)
A low-budget cosmic horror about two brothers pulled back into a place they cannot leave, where time and the landscape stop behaving normally. It is the closest catalog cousin to It Ends in scale and in its existential, ambiguous bent.
It Follows(2014)
Another young-ensemble horror built on a relentless threat and a slow accumulation of dread rather than gore. It is the comparison reviewers reach for when they describe the thing on the road that will not stop.
Annihilation(2018)
A cosmic, surreal journey into a space that does not follow normal rules. It shares It Ends's interest in incomprehension and an ending that refuses to resolve cleanly.
Under the Skin(2013)
Slow and opaque, structured around driving through a hostile landscape. A cosmic-horror cousin for the quiet, unexplained register It Ends works in.
Common questions
- When does It Ends come out?
- It Ends opens in US theaters on Friday, August 21, 2026, distributed by Neon. It premiered earlier at SXSW in March 2025.
- Is It Ends the same movie as It Ends With Us?
- No. It Ends (2026) is a horror film directed by Alexander Ullom about four friends trapped on an endless highway, released by Neon. It Ends With Us (2024) is a romantic drama based on the Colleen Hoover novel, directed by Justin Baldoni. The two are unrelated apart from the similar title.
- What is It Ends about?
- Four recent college graduates take a late-night drive and turn onto a two-lane highway that never ends. The road loops, the miles never bring them anywhere, and people on the road, some lost and some hostile, threaten them when they stop. It plays as an existential horror film about the uncertain stretch after graduation as much as a road-trip thriller.
- Is It Ends scary?
- It is more of a slow-burn, dread-driven horror film than a jump-scare one. Reviews describe a strong scare or two near the start, then a shift into sustained, quiet tension built on the premise of an inescapable road. It is light on gore. We have not scored it on Watch Darkly yet, since we score films only after watching them.
- Is the ending of It Ends explained?
- The ending is deliberately open. The film does not hand over a tidy resolution, and that ambiguity is the single most discussed thing about it. Some viewers find the conclusion earned and emotionally clear, others find it unsatisfying. This answer is kept spoiler-free.
- Why do critics and audiences disagree about It Ends?
- Critics gave it a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score from 24 reviews, while the early IMDb user score is lower, around 5.7. The split mostly comes from expectation. The film is sold on a high-concept horror premise but plays as a quiet character piece with an ambiguous ending, so viewers expecting a conventional thriller are the most likely to be let down. These numbers come from small, early samples.
- Where can I watch It Ends?
- In US theaters from August 21, 2026, through Neon. It had a brief 48-hour digital rental window on the Letterboxd Video Store in December 2025, which has since closed. No streaming or home-rental date has been announced for the wide release. We will update this once one is set.
- Who directed It Ends?
- Alexander Ullom. It Ends is his first feature, and he also wrote and edited it.
- Who is in the cast of It Ends?
- The four leads are Phinehas Yoon, Akira Jackson, Noah Toth, and Mitchell Cole, playing the four friends in the car. The cast was largely unknown at the time of release.
- Is It Ends based on a true story or a book?
- No. It Ends is an original screenplay by Alexander Ullom. It is not adapted from a novel and is not based on real events.
- Is It Ends gory?
- Not particularly. The horror runs on dread and atmosphere rather than graphic violence, and the central fear is the trapped-on-an-endless-road premise.
- How long is It Ends, and what is it rated?
- It runs 89 minutes and is rated R.
- When do predictions on It Ends close?
- Predictions on Watch Darkly close when the film opens, on August 21, 2026. Until then, signed-in users can predict the Watch Darkly score. After release, the film moves to rating.