Review: 'It Ends' puts rookie director Alexander Ullom and a talented no-name cast on an endless, and inventive, road trip

The supernatural thriller “It Ends,” the debut work of writer-director Alexander Ullom, doesn’t require buckets of blood or awful carnage to scare its audience — just a solid premise carried out to its logical and terrifying conclusion.

Four college-age friends are on a road trip, driving through the backwoods of Florida. After taking a turn into the woods, they can’t find the next turn they’re supposed to take. The GPS tells them to keep going straight, though the driver, Tyler (Mitchell Cole), an Army veteran, thinks they need to turn around.

They turn around, and immediately hit a dead end. So they turn around again and keep driving — and driving and driving and driving, for what seems like forever. The engineer of the group, James (Phinehas Yoon), notices that the gas gauge hasn’t budged since they got on this road. And the more easygoing Fisher (Noah Toth) and the car’s lone woman occupant, Day (Akira Jackson), notice that they’re not getting hungry or needing to stop and pee. 

At one point, they stop the car and get out for a moment. That’s when they learn something else about this road: That there are people in the woods on both sides, who rush the car in a frenzy, hurting anyone who would get in their way. So they hurry back into the car and keep driving.

There’s not a lot of overt violence in “It Ends” — the R rating is for the copious F-bombs — and it’s part of Ullom’s cleverness that he can generate tension and surprise just by showing how far these four characters will go on this nightmare journey. Ullom also adds a healthy dose of humor, as his doomed quartet grow and adjust to the strange new rules of their existence.

The foursome of actors, all unknowns, are a solid ensemble, and smartly enact the easy camaraderie of old friends caught in this “Twilight Zone” scenario. Ullom shows he can take very little money and create something thought-provoking and nail-biting.

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‘It Ends’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, August 28, at the Cinemark Century 16 (South Salt Lake) and the Cinemark Jordan Landing (West Jordan). Rated R for pervasive language. Running time: 89 minutes.