Alexander Ullom's directorial debut It Ends opened in Los Angeles and New York on August 21 with a 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 60 reviews. The film follows four recent college graduates on a late-night drive who find their car cannot stop, turn around, or run out of road, an inescapable trip that turns into an extended argument about what it means to keep going anyway.
Ullom wrote, edited and directed the film, which premiered at SXSW last year before Neon acquired it for a 2026 theatrical release. SlashFilm's review called it "a hell of a strong cap to a powerhouse summer for first-time horror filmmakers," comparing its dread more to Samuel Beckett than to a conventional scare-driven horror movie. TheWrap's William Bibbiani described it as a "vital entry in the latest horror zeitgeist."
That zeitgeist has a track record this year. Curry Barker's Obsession and 20-year-old Kane Parsons' Backrooms, both directorial debuts, had earned a combined $548 million worldwide by June, according to ScreenRant, outperforming several established franchise entries released the same year. It Ends is a far smaller release by comparison, expanding beyond its two opening cities on August 28, but critics are already filing it under the same story.
Also this week
Insidious: Out of the Further opened August 21 to a more divided response, sitting at 59% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Lin Shaye returns as Elise Rainier in the sixth entry, alongside Amelia Eve, new to the franchise, as Gemma, a young mother who discovers she can enter the Further. Rotten Tomatoes' review roundup found critics praising individual set pieces, including a widely cited pillow-fort sequence that Dread Central called "one of the best set pieces from the entire Insidious franchise," while several reviews faulted a screenplay they described as predictable in its back half.
Buffet Infinity premiered on Shudder August 21, told entirely through mock commercials for two rival restaurants.
Directed by Simon Glassman, the film is structured as a string of in-world TV ads rather than a traditional narrative, escalating from consumer satire into cosmic horror. Bloody Disgusting praised the format as a genuine surprise, while AIPT's review found the back half loses the thread of its own premise.
The Whisper Man, a serial-killer thriller starring Robert De Niro as a retired detective on the case, lands on Netflix next Friday, August 28, the same day It Ends expands into wider release. Add It Ends and Insidious: Out of the Further to your watchlist now, and log them once you've seen them. More next week.
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