The End of Oak Street (2026) Review
THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
Life can be quite unpredictable when you’re not trying hard enough. You don’t think so? Take a look at The End of Oak Street.
PLOT
The 2026 film takes place in 7/10/82 and follows the Platt family that live in Flowervale, Michigan. Denise is an aspiring novelist and her husband Greg does pizza delivery on the side, when in actuality is his sole income after recently being fired from his main job. Audrey the firstborn has an interest in science and her young brother Brian has been struggling to fit in with others whether he’s fighting other boys, smoking cigarettes or crushes on his neighbor Jeannette Christiansen, but still practices archery and is close to the family dog Starbuck. During a suburban barbecue, Denise has a private conversation with one of her neighbors, Mrs Huddleston (Anne Gee Byrd), who encourages her to keep writing but also shares with her a rare plant that suddenly appeared in her garden. When she photographs it and does research at the library, the librarian Mrs. Valcourt (Emily Kuroda) examines it to be one that’s been extinct for millions of years. Their other neighbor, Mel Jacobs (PJ Byrne), would confront the family of giant animal feces on his yard. To maintain a stable relationship with the grouch of a neighbor as he threatens Starbuck, Greg & Brian clean it up before nightfall even though they swore to not be responsible for it. When a storm occurs on nightfall, a white light engulfs the neighborhood that causes a power outage. By morning, the Platts do discover the power out and Brian worries of not finding Starbuck. When Denise & Greg split up to find the dog but instead, they find various dinosaurs scavenging for food, whether it is trash or devouring other humans. While there are herbivorous creatures like Stegosaurus and Camarasaurus, the couple first runs into a vicious Coelophysis that chases them to the door. The family does try driving away from the danger, but they see where the block ends that leads into the prehistoric jungle they’re stuck in. As they barricade the house, Greg admits to Denise of being laid off. When they find their basement flooded, Denise would be heartbroken as she has her typewriter downstairs to continue writing. With no choice but to settle in the living room, Audrey theorizes that the flashing lights that occurred at night are a result of wormholes that took them back in time. As the day passes, Huddleston was found eaten by a Ceolophysis and Mel gets devoured by a pterosaur pack. By night, Greg argues with Denise as he read a draft of her work and knows how she has a secret desire to leave the family to pursue her dreams. They stop arguing when they find out Brian left the house looking for Starbuck. Audrey would catch up to him first only after he gets attacked by another kid, Kaden Tucker (Hudson Meek), who tries to get even with him for injuring his brother Charles (David Alexander Kaplan) before the wormhole. Together, Brian & Audrey regroup with Jeannette who just lost her parents to other dinosaurs. As Denise & Greg go looking for their kids, they deal with their obstacles as they briefly get blocked by a pack of giant turtles and evade a vicious Spinosaurus. They do find one wormhole and Greg considers jumping, but Denise refuses to leave the kids. Just as she declares that, the wormhole closes. By morning, the couple finds kids, accept Jeanette and share a laugh when taking a picture of a Camarasurus couple mating. Just when they thought to be safe for a while, Greg would die protecting his wife from an intimidating Allosaurus. The remaining family would try grieving together when returning to the house for their remaining supplies, but they’d be invaded by a giant Titanoboa snake. Brian tries saving his mom when shooting an arrow at it and when it targets him for it, Denis returns the favor and stabs it excessively with a knife until it leaves. From afar, Denise sees another wormhole at Valcourt’s house, now planning to go there until they find another one closer. Seeing it appear and disappear intervals, Jeanette goes in first. Brian misses when taking too long and when hitting the ground, he gets grabbed by an Ornithoceirus until Starbuck returns to intervene. At the librarian’s home, it is swarm with Ornithosuchus group that ate her husband and she saves the family by killing one with her shotgun until she gets eaten too. The family makes it to the next wormhole in time and land on a swimming pool of a home outside Oak Street. When checking the time, they realize they made it back 20 minutes before their home was engulfed by the bigger wormhole. As Jeanette saves her family, Denise calls Greg and some of her neighbors before it’s too late. Two years would pass after this and the military contains the area while scientists continue investigating the wormhole. Denise would be deemed for her warnings and wrote a titular novel of her family’s experiences that made them moderately wealthy, paving the way for Audrey to go to Cornell University like she dreamed of going. The film would end with the Platts and Christensens enjoying a barbecue together.
THOUGHTS
David Robert Mitchell has grown to be an ambitious filmmaker of his generation if you’ve seen It Follows and Under the Silver Lake. That being said, it was a big step for him to change the scenery going from independent thrillers to sci fi extravaganza. This one was a great change of scenery because while Universal’s Jurassic Saga have proven dinosaurs to be bankable entertainment, they weren’t really done like this in a long time. For the first time since Jurassic Park, it actually felt scary seeing them again. Think about it, a miraculous wormhole sends you back in time without any warning where & when you’ll be is enough to make you shit bricks. Apart from great production design on the 80s aesthetic, the visual effects are great on each creature and they differ most solely off of having feathered hair rather than be completely scaly like the Titanoboa, as the hair is something said to be scientifically accurate for most creatures of the past. From Spinosaurus to Allosaurus to Titanoboa, each scene peaked in suspense and I wouldn’t have it any other way. And it was a good laugh seeing the Camarasaurus couple mating, using a house to balance themselves because nature itself can be funny. These scenes play out very well thanks to an exciting Michael Giacchino score. With such ambition throughout, I did have a long time thinking about what was the point of this adventure. With David’s father Robert Allen passing away during production, I think this was a tale that says it’s important to let go of all resentment in order to recognize how good you got it. If you love your family, then you truly won in life. This is the big dynamic circling between Greg & Denise who see things differently until danger eventually gets them back in the same page. Ewan McGregor is great as the former because even though he is scared and masks it with a smile, Greg can’t help being optimistic to keep progressing into the unknown, aware that no one else is gonna dare it. It definitely sucks to lose your main source of income and degrade to a lesser job, but for him, it made him hungrier to take care of his family. And thankfully, having a second job led to saving his life after tragedy. Anne Hathaway is amazing as the latter because you can relate to how she can’t help wanting more in her life and not want to stop when it can get better rather than live in the now the way her husband does. It is wrong of her to have that personal thought to want to leave her family, but the fact she never really acted on it is where you can still respect her. Danger brought her closer to her loved ones, reminding her that her love for Greg came from being an opposites attract relationship as his optimism matched her pragmatism. Seeing him die was her wake up call on how good she had it, making her fight harder to protect what was left, being her kids. Being more ferocious like the beasts around her paid off as it led to her having it both ways that felt like one in a million for anyone. As for the kids, Maisy Stella gives a breakout performance as Audrey because she uses her resourcefulness to become resilient while Christian Convery showed Brian to be most impulsive as he struggles to make a contribution and the only thing he had to care about was his dog. I’d definitely call it luck that Starbuck became the one pet to survive the whole ordeal compared to others, but at least the family got to be whole after escaping the terror. And on the bright side, they get to build a bond with someone they didn’t expect. In her given time, Jordan Alexa Davis shakes things up as Jeannette, being relatable to come off most reserved given the trauma she shares with the Platts. She sticks around with them because in her eyes, they have a better idea what to do and she ends up bonding with Audrey best because the glance they shared when she gets bandaged was enough to say they relate to vulnerability, hence being together by the end of the movie. If she really is living with a doppelganger of herself while still with her parents, it’s a relief she doesn’t try replacing her because that would’ve been unnecessary on her end. However her family is coping with that should it be true and it’s not a twins sister, at least it appears healthy. And should the government ask Denise for any information related This movie was a blast, but even fun stuff like this have me scratch my head with some questionable moments. Like for instance, it was one thing for Audrey to not point out the flashing lights before Brian, but I tripped out that Greg actually considered going out to check the screaming when he didn’t even grab a weapon before sticking out the door. It was also cool for Denise to shoot one Ceolophysis when returning to the house, but it’s crazy one of the neighbors don’t even floor it with their car to kill the other. And I don’t want to get picky, why was there a school bus? This movie takes place in the summer, so I don’t know if it’s implying people were coming back from a summer camp early or the wormhole barely misses the closest school. For a while I was guessing a lot on how long that Kaden was following Brian before making a move on him at night, but Denise is a bit wrong saying going straight was the only way back to the house. I’m pretty sure there had to be one route to go around before needing to enter the jungle next door. And while I don’t want to judge the family grieving after seeing Greg get eaten, they should’ve kept running to the house because there was no guarantee of the carnivores not being in the area which makes them way too lucky at that point. That tripped me out more than the fact Denise being out of character later asking the kids if they wanted her to go first when she had already told her husband she wouldn’t ever leave them. Ignore these things however, then you’ll cherish The End of Oak Street as a return to form for old school blockbusters. If sci fi and dinosaurs remain a favorite mix of yours, see this now.
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