By Dan Skip Allen 

I’m a fan of book to screen adaptations like Stephen King books and so forth. A lot of thrillers are adapted from books. I originally thought that “The End of Oak Street” was adapted from a book, but it’s not. It had that vibe, though. It’s based on an original script written by David Robert Mitchell (It Follows, Under the Silver Lake), who is also its director. It is such an interesting story that fits right into my sweet spot as a film lover. The whole aesthetic of the story is right up my alley. Fans of Mitchell will be interested to see him do a big budget sci-fi thriller such as this, considering his indie roots. This is nothing like “It Follows” but as often happens, filmmakers do one for the big studios so they can get their next passion project off of the ground. In this case, that’s “They Follow.” I’m just glad he made this movie, though, because it’s fantastic. It had such a great vibe.

The Platt family, Greg (Ewan McGregor), Denise (Anne Hathaway), Audrey (Maisy Stella) and Btian (Christian Convery) are a normal everyday family who live in a small, non-descriptive little town on the outskirts of Detroit, Michigan, in the early 80s. Like a lot of families, they have some domestic problems between husband and wife, and the kids are going through their growing pains. Randomly on one night, a loud noise and barking from his dog, Starbuck woke up the Convery character. After this, some odd events start happening, such as a strange tree popping up in a neighbors yard and a large pile of poop miraculously appears in another neighbors yard. After this, things start getting crazy as the family notices their entire street has been displaced in time to a prehistoric age of dinosaurs, and they have to fight for their lives.

Mitchell has taken some of his sensibilities as an indie filmmaker and brought them to this big budget movie. Specifically, the camera work stood out to me. There are so many split diopter shots in this film. It’s incredible.  I loved how when one person is talking, you see another in the background with a reaction to what the person in the foreground is saying. Also, there are a lot of scenes where characters are walking or driving down a street in a car, and there are dinosaurs in the background. These scenes can be very suspenseful. The cinematography by Michael Gioulakis is first rate. It’s some of the best I’ve seen this year. He does a great job of combining real characters with CGI creatures, and it works so well. One specific scene involves a big dinosaur running after the family while they’re driving in a car, and a woman comes out of her house, and the dinosaur goes on her porch and ears her. The camera angle changes, and we see the entire shot. This is just one example of how incredibly well done the cinematography is. I’d love a behind the scenes documentary on this film or bonus features on a 4k uhd showing how some of this stuff was done.

I’ve seen my share of dinosaurs in films over the years. “Jurassic Park” is the tip of the iceberg in that regard. Even though there have been a lot of these films in the last thirty or so years, I think they may have been overdone. I’m sick of “Jurassic Park/World” films by now. They haven’t been good in a while. Universal Pictures keep making them because they have made a lot of money. After seeing “The End of Oak Street,” I’m back on the dinosaur train. The way Mitchell has used them in this movie is one of the most original ways I’ve seen them used in films in a while. He uses a lot of variations of the beasts and how they are threatening to this family, and their community is so creative. There are flying dinos, snake-like dinos, and t-rex type as well as alligator species as well. Among many others. There are even big furry ones that have a very funny scene involving the McGregor character. The myriad of dinosaurs in this movie are numerous. I loved seeing so many variations on screen.

As aforementioned, there are domestic problems with the made couple in the movie. The domestic problems were very relatable to me and I’m sure many others who see this film. These characters reminded me of my parents to an extent. Obviously, there are differences, such as where the family in the film is from. I’m from Massachusetts originally. The bickering about money and paying bills and leaving to work extra hours was very similar to my father. Without spoiling the movie, there were other things in the plot that I could relate to. Even the stuff with the kids was a reminder of my life. I was bullied a lot, and my sister seemed to take a lot of what was going on onto herself. She blames herself for no reason, but that’s how kids do things somehow. They blame themselves for things that aren’t their fault because their family is not a happy one. This was a nice addition to the script by Mitchell. It gave this family more nuance.

The movie has a category of sci-fi/adventure in the bio on various search engines and film information websites. This isn’t necessarily wrong, but I think there is a horror element to this movie that is pretty evident from the onset. Sure, the sci-fi and adventure aspects are here in spades,  but I think they support the horror dynamics of this film quite a bit. There are literally people getting eaten on screen more than once, and these scenes are pretty graphic. I was almost covering my eyes a couple of times because of graphic violence and blood and guts on screen. One scene involving a main character was quite jarring, to say the least. I loved how Mitchell used what people know him for but mixed that with other genres to make a very entertaining movie for the whole family. 

One quick little thing I noticed in the film was part of the title. I got a kick out of how Oak Street was a street I lived on as a kid. My Oak Street was vastly different from this one, but combined with the dog and the families’ domestic issues, and kids on bikes really gave me flashbacks to my childhood growing up in the early 80s in Massachusetts. I related to these aspects so much. I couldn’t believe it. It was kind of shocking how much I loved all of this stuff. I’m definitely going to recommend it to my brothers and sister for these reasons. 

“The End of Oak Street “ was a terrific film with many things that I genuinely cared about. The dinosaurs notwithstanding. The family aspects and the setting of the film were right up my alley. The performances by the entire cast were fantastic. I loved everybody in the film. The cinematography was incredible by Gioulakis. He understood what Mitchell was going for in this story. The cinematography is some of the best I’ve seen all year. August is a slow month for films, but WB has mined some great ground with last year’s “Weapons” directed by Zach Cregor, and now this film that is directed by Mitchell, whose another horror guy. It’s ironic that these two were put in this slot, and they are both fantastic movies. I loved everything about this film, and I hope people go see it.

 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 stars