The Guardian has given a glowing review to *It Ends*, a micro-budget horror film that critic Radheyan Simonpillai ranks among the year's best. Directed by first-timer Alex Ullom, the film follows a group of young friends whose late-night drive for food goes wrong when their GPS leads them into a forest they cannot escape, trapping them in an endlessly repeating, nightmarish road. The review praises the film for reworking the familiar time-loop premise into something closer to an arthouse take on the Prometheus myth, exploring existential dread rather than comic whimsy.

Made for just $50,000, the film relies on a creeping score, naturalistic performances from its gen-Z cast, and a claustrophobic setting largely confined to the characters' hatchback to build tension. The four friends—played by Mitchell Cole, Akira Jackson, Noah Toth and Phinehas Yoon—grapple with unresolved guilt and grief as possible explanations for their curse, while their warmth and camaraderie, shown through games and shared rituals inside the car, offset the encroaching despair. The review highlights the ensemble's chemistry and the film's ability to turn a low budget into an intimate, unsettling chamber piece.