I think it’s safe to say that these days, the notion of the modern dinosaur movie has been entirely co-opted by the Jurassic World franchise. Oh sure, Peter Jackson’s King Kong slapped some saurians about a bit, 65 was OK and Primal War tried hard to give cinematic dinos a bit more bite, but – as the old Jurassic Park toys ads used to insist – if doesn’t say JP, it’s extinct. Well, that doesn’t seem to be entirely true any more thanks to The End Of Oak Street, a wild, throwback, sci-fi/thriller that may actually eclipse six out of the seven entries of that gargantuan franchise.
Who has managed to give us this rather astounding feat? Well, none other than David Robert Mitchell, the man who gave us the STD-as-horror classic It Follows and the criminally weird and decidedly underseen Under The Silver Lake. Prepare to venture deep into the past (1982) and then even deeper than ever before as the director fine tunes his Spielbergian leanings and delivers potentially the best, damn, dinosaur movie since 1993.
The Platts are a fairly regular family living in thr suburb of Oak Street in the early 80s, but like any movie trying to emulate the formula of various Amblin movies released within the same decade, cracks are visibly starting to show in the marriage. Wife Denise is horribly bored by the daily grind and acts out her desire to leave in the writing she does in secret as an aspiring novelist. Husband Greg is the quintessential nice guy, but is struggling to hold the family finances together as he takes on other jobs to make ends meet, and as a result of this strained relationship, their kids, Audrey and Brian are acting out, which further adds to the feeling that the unit is about to implode.
However, after some weird occurrences are noted around the neighbourhood (flashing white lights, strange plants appearing in people’s gardens, a mountain of shit showing up on their obnoxious neighbour’s property), they all seem to be a precursor to the main event when the entirety of the area is suddenly transported back to prehistoric times just as everyone is going to bed. The next morning, everyone goes on about their day despite not initially noticing that their environment has changed into something far more hazardous, but while the Platts wander about the streets for various reasons (checking on neighbours, looking for Starbuck the family dog) they all soon get a rude wake up call when various dinosaurs suddenly show up to taste these delicious looking new morsels.
Finally realising just how deep in dino-shit they truly are, the Platts flee back home and start fortifying their house against any scaly predator who might come calling. But as the threats mount, various questions have to be asked – is this a permanent thing, or will there be another time-hopping wormhole along in a minute to make everything a-ok? While the family all have different ideas, they only serve to widen the emotional gulfs between them, but even if the Platts can get on the same page, what the fuck can they hope to do about dinosaurs?
In a summer that’s already given us Christopher Nolan adapting Homer in ways we’ve never seen before and a depressed Spider-Man laying waste to global box office, there’s something somewhat odd and random about a time travelling, suburban, dinosaur movie from the director of It Follows. Obviously it tends to make a little more sense when you figure that this Spielbergian mystery was produced by J.J. Abrams (don’t go looking for Cloverfield connections, there are none), but if any of you are feeling that later Jurassic World entries dropped the ball somewhat when realising some of its more bolder swings, The End Of Oak Street actually succeeds in finally giving us a “modern” world with prehistoric lizards running rampant.
Lest we forget, it was J.A. Bayona’s Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom that fully set up the concept of dinosaurs wandering through everyday life with reckless abandon, but the subsequent Jurassic Park: Dominion botched the idea, only teasing us with such a prospect only to simply dump us once again on yet another tropical island. However, with Oak Street, we get all the saurian meets suburbia carnage you could hope for, and despite its rating, Mitchell goes surprisingly hard on some of those attacks as dumbfounded surburbanites get violently chomped by feathery lizards at a moments notice. A spinosarus rams a car through the front of a house, excited coelophysis clamp their jaws onto porch-dwelling onlookers and pterosaurs pluck people to pieces as they try to make a stand on their roof, and the fact that the movie is surprisingly harsh leads to the action sequences being legitimately edge of the seat stuff.
However, selling it even harder is both Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor as the fracturing parents, whose marital issues have to be put on hold due to temporal fuckery, and while the latter portrays the quintessential nice-guy patriarch trying to hold things together, Hathaway is something of a revelation as the miserable housewife forced to become a warrior mother thanks to the addition of hissing lizard-monsters. While she may have displayed inner strength while she weaved her tapestry throughout The Odyssey, sometimes there’s nothing that beats watching a bellowing actress break a chair over an alligator’s back to save her babies. However, for all the nasty deaths and legitimately shocking twists (you’ll know it when you see it), The End Of Oak Street also proves to be deceptively funny as it delivers the type of dino-action the Jurassic movies would never think to show you (screwing sauropods was not on my 2026 bingo card), but it’s all also incredibly heartfelt too.
While some may feel the ending is a bit too broadly sci-fi for their tastes, The End Of Oak Street proves to be be the best dinosaur movie in actual ages, which sees Mitchell accurately mimic that Amblin feel while pulling as few punches as possible. But while some may feel that we’ve become a bit dino-saturated as of late (Jurassic World: Rebirth was only last year, remember), Oak Street’s 80s vibes means that watching extinct predators stalking their prey through picturesque neighbourhoods carries an extra wallop after yet another rumble in the jumble. After masterfully masterminding various dino-attacks in numerous cul-de-sacs, the prospect of Mitchell’s upcoming sequel, They Follow, is now positively mouth watering, but don’t let that rating fool you. The End Of Oak Street may a film about families that’s rated family friendly – but it plays impressively rough.
While some might feel that the ending seems like it’s come from another movie entirely, David Robert Mitchell’s dino thriller gives the obvious Spielbergian aspects a funky, Twilight Zone style reworking to create something fast, moving and genuinely unpredictable. Whether it can make an impact in a summer caught in a Nolan/Marvel chokehold remains to be seen, but this is one dino-flick that deserves to leave a sizable footprint.
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Shame about that A.I marketing stunt, I know that turned a lot of people off from even seeing it. I considered going to the theater for it myself but when you’re using that junk for press, it makes me wonder if its used in your film, unfortunately.