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Alex Ullom’s It Ends Opens This Weekend as a Breakout Microbudget Horror

Strong reviews and festival awards have pushed Neon to mount theatrical and experiential promotion that signals studio confidence in the filmmaker’s rapid rise.

Overview

  • It Ends opens in New York and Los Angeles on Friday with a nationwide expansion the following week and has drawn broadly positive reviews and a roughly 94% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes.
  • The film confines its story to four recent college friends trapped on a never-ending two‑lane road and uses a single car setting to explore generational anxiety and dependence on technology.
  • It premiered at SXSW, won Best First Feature at Fantasia, and Neon picked up U.S. distribution, then paired the release with aggressive marketing tactics including a planned endurance screening to amplify word‑of‑mouth.
  • While It Ends reaches audiences, Ullom has already finished principal photography on his second Neon-backed film, 4 X 4: The Event, which finished production with an eight‑member cast that includes Sophia Lillis, Dylan Minnette, Jaden Smith, and Jacob Tremblay.
  • Critics and industry coverage place Ullom within a wave of Gen Z horror directors whose low‑budget, high‑concept films have translated festival buzz into studio deals and faster career opportunities for young filmmakers.