It Ends: The Dread of the Daily Same

Liminal horror has been the new buzzing sub genres birthed from the internet, from 4chan and to the big screen we are seeing this dark dreadful nostalgic familiar gloom take over so much media. Often when it comes to these liminal horrors, they are very simple in nature, with me seeing it almost as the replacement to the mascot horror boom of the 2010's that hooked youth like me into the poking their head a little deeper into the dark hole of horror. Often when it comes to these web borned genres there is mountains of subpar and down right horrible attempts of horror due to liminal horror's simple structure and wide understand, with very few gems imbedded in this jagged structures. A few examples get popular and then they get copied and then those version get copied and so on and so furth. They all try to be what came before them, with no real changes or spice, hoping to land as big as their stars of which crafts a once bubbling fandom into a burnt out trope. Games, You tube videos, ARG's, books, movies and crafted illustrations get pumped and dumped at rapid pace that when there is a new exciting take it becomes almost impossible to get to it. Thankfully I was handed this gem instead of having to dig for it myself and it could have not been given to me at a better time. Never has their been a movie or even a piece of media that has hit me at the exact point that it is targeting and would resonate with me the most, unless you count Bo Burnham's Eighth Grade of which I saw in 8th grade, being quite the experience for my 2nd R rated movie in theatres next to the remake of IT. Once I had It Ends pitched to me it I knew it was my shit cause I have this odd love for creepy stories about anomalous roads, whether it be creepy pasta's like the left right game, 11 miles, or even some SCP's, I just can't get enough of never-ending roads and their mysterious nature. Each one of these renditions on ever expanding roads have their own bits and pieces that make them their own but one of the main connections of these fables that are not just the gravel, is its sort of rules that they enforce upon their passengers and the area around them. They bend reality in a way that breaks a lot of rules but never go fully psychedelic, being grounded enough to make you think that it is not as crazy as it really is. An roads are such a interesting liminal space that we rarely even think about because we are all so focused on getting to our next location and the other people on the road. So taking away the destination and isolating the experience seems like such a simple creeping terror that everyone has had on some lonely night on a windy road with just your headlights glowing a tunnel of light on the flat yet slightly bumpy paved cement.

So a scary road, that is what is now getting under the skin of youth now, I hear some disgruntled reader think to themselves and to that I say it is not just the scary road, it is what the scary road means, you know that literacy device called metaphors that is talked about so much. But before we go driving on the long winded metaphor trip of a lifetime, we are greeted by four diverse newly graduated Gen Z young adults, off to take on the world with their new knowledge. They talk about their futures, their hopes, and how many animals they could fight compared to other animals. These people are the trusted core four group that may not be close to each other on a one to one basis but when together are a unit of fun, care, and overall shenanigans. Each one of them bring their own energy, history, ideologies, and flair to this crammed car. The casual joking, that leads to shower thoughts, that leads to bickering, that leads to philosophical breakdowns, that then loops back around to joking is a all to common occurrence of the talking styles of the post-post irony stage of conversations of my generation. Each of these characters bounce off each other with such spirted fury, so when the story official takes the turn into the terror and they are faced with this contrustred cosmic carriageway, it begins the study of themselves and their future. The first rules of the road they encounter are the strange others that live in the forest that lace the sides of the roads, with them crawling out towards our newcomers when they are exit their car. They are on them almost instantly with them having barely 2 mins outside the car until they come their way. More and more rules are figured out on the drive like the fact that nothing seems to change, the cars gas never drains, no one becomes hungry or sleepy, they don't even need to go to the bathroom. Everything has stopped yet the road is constantly going, mile after mile after mile.

I first heard It Ends on the podcast Eye of the Duck (which is a great podcast about film production and such, you should give it a listen) while I was driving back home in a stuffed to the brim car after cleaning and moving everything out of my apartment that I lived in for almost all of my college life. This road that I have driven so many times back and forth when I came up to visit or it was the hoildays seemed to go on much longer than it usally did on this drive. The normal pitstops and attractions where farther apart from each other and when they did come they whizzed by with no sparkle or light. There is a part of my drive where I go down a back road that is just miles of farm land and forest, with there being rarely any other cars on it. The roads whine on with such sleek curves and bumpy humps, I take the turns with such ease while all the objects in my car rattle and shift. While my body is taking these turns and stops my mind is wandering about everything. Am I going to be able to store all of my stuff? How long will I be back with my parent for? What jobs should I work or apply for after I have seemed to apply to 100s already. Where is my life going to go? These worries and questions bother me in the back of my head for almost all of the ride as I try to drown them out with the a stack of custom burnt CD's of all my favorite songs so that the lyrics take over my thoughts. It helps a bit but I still wonder where I will end up, what is the goal, where am I even going? Was aything that I just did for 4 years worth it? Are the people driving around me as clueless as me, have they figured it out, are they just winging it, are they even where they want to be in life? The next song comes on and I still keep driving towards hopefully some kind of conculsion. Any to be honest I'm still driving that road towards a conculsion, to an answer, to some sort of solution to a question that I have long forgetten the meaning of.

When I did watch this movie I was on a road trip. I was in the middle of the woods in a rinky dink cabin that just had enough of a reach to internet for me to use my laptop and stream the movie.