When Time Loops Meet Existential Dread: How It Ends Might Redefine Liminal Horror
Let me ask you something: Why do we keep returning to time loops in storytelling? Is it the allure of fixing mistakes? The thrill of escaping inevitability? Or maybe it’s the raw terror of realizing you’re trapped in a system you can’t comprehend—a metaphor for modern life itself? It Ends, the debut feature from Alexander Ullom, doesn’t just ask these questions; it weaponizes them. This isn’t another Groundhog Day with jump scares. It’s a cerebral, anxiety-inducing plunge into a nightmare that feels disturbingly inevitable, like staring into a mirror and realizing the reflection isn’t yours.
Liminal Horror: The Genre That Refuses to Be Pinned Down
Here’s what fascinates me about liminal horror: it thrives on ambiguity. Unlike slasher films or ghost stories, which have clear rules (even if they’re absurd), liminal horror revels in the undefined. Think of Backrooms’ endless yellow corridors or Skinamarink’s disembodied voices whispering from nowhere. These aren’t places you escape—they’re spaces that gnaw at your sanity. What Ullom does with It Ends is take this aesthetic and inject it with existential stakes. The endless road and forest aren’t just eerie settings; they’re existential prisons. And that’s where this film transcends its genre.
In my opinion, the true horror here isn’t the faceless attackers emerging from the woods. It’s the realization that the characters are pawns in a system they can’t even begin to understand. It’s the same dread Sartre captured in No Exit—except instead of hell being other people, it’s a road that loops infinitely, indifferent to their pleas for meaning.
Gen Z’s Existential Crisis, Bottled Into a Horror Movie
Let’s talk about the characters. Four college grads on a reunion trip? Classic setup for a slasher. But Ullom isn’t interested in tropes. These aren’t just victims; they’re modern archetypes. They’re the generation inheriting climate collapse, economic ruin, and a digital world that’s flattened human connection. Their nightmare isn’t about surviving a monster—it’s about confronting the absurdity of being trapped in a system they didn’t create, with no exit in sight. If that doesn’t scream Gen Z anxiety, I don’t know what does.
A detail that stands out is how the film weaponizes stillness. Most horror needs motion—chasers, jump scares, frantic escapes. But It Ends makes you wait. It makes you sit with the characters as they argue, theorize, and unravel. It’s Waiting for Godot meets The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. That’s bold. That’s uncomfortable. And that’s exactly why it works.
Why This Movie Matters in 2026
Here’s the thing: We’re saturated with content that distracts, not content that challenges. It Ends feels like a counterpunch to that. It’s not just a horror movie—it’s a Rorschach test. What do you see in its endless road? A metaphor for late-stage capitalism? The paralysis of decision fatigue? The horror of realizing your life has no grand narrative? I’d argue it’s all of those things.
What many people don’t realize is that liminal horror’s power lies in its refusal to explain itself. The moment Ullom gives us a “why,” the spell breaks. But by keeping the mystery intact, he forces us to project our own fears onto the screen. That’s not just clever filmmaking—it’s philosophical provocation.
Final Thoughts: The Nightmare We Can’t Wake Up From
It Ends isn’t just a movie to watch. It’s a movie to wrestle with. It’s the kind of film that’ll spark Reddit threads dissecting every frame and TikTok theories that spiral into madness. And maybe that’s the point. In a world where algorithms trap us in endless loops of outrage and distraction, Ullom’s film holds up a cracked mirror. The real question isn’t how the characters escape the road—it’s whether we’ll ever escape our own.
From my perspective, this is what horror should aspire to be: unsettling, yes, but also a catalyst for asking the kind of questions that keep you up at 3 a.m. Like, what’s scarier: a monster in the woods or a universe that doesn’t care if you scream?
