Writer-director David Robert Mitchell, maker of the modern horror classic It Follows, attempts something completely different with The End of Oak Street. While I admire the go-for-broke premise, the finished product left me a bit dismayed.
An early ’80s suburban family going through what they think is turmoil gets a major lesson in actual life-threatening turmoil.
Anne Hathaway plays the mom, a closeted aspiring writer who has just about had it with her dull pizza-deliveryman husband (Ewan McGregor). Their kids (Christian Convery and Maisy Stella) are dealing with the typical high school crap, including neighborhood bullies.
Life is really humdrum—until a bright light precedes what becomes a full-on dinosaur rampage. Their street, without any real warning or true explanation, has been blasted back to the dinosaur days.
Mitchell is clearly going for that Spielberg vibe, as many directors do. He seems to be mixing the quiet moments in E.T. with the suburban dinosaur rampage Spielberg flirted with briefly at the end of The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
The dinosaur stuff is pretty good. In accordance with some science experts, these dinosaurs, including raptors and a T-Rex, have feathers. They are merciless eating machines, biting people’s heads off in a manner that pushes the limits of the PG-13 rating. I did enjoy a few of the sequences, and Hathaway running around with a shotgun almost makes the movie passable.
Unfortunately, the quieter moments—dealing with the family troubles—slow the movie down. The movie is only 99 minutes long, but the non-dino scenes make it feel much longer. As for the ending … let’s just say I was undecided about how I felt about the overall film experience, but once the lame ending played out, I knew I didn’t like the movie.
Back in 2011, J.J. Abrams made a film called Super 8 that I labeled a shameless Steven Spielberg ripoff. It just so happens that Abrams produced Oak Street, and while I think this one is a little better, it doesn’t quite pull off its premise. I have to categorize this right alongside Super 8 as another failed Spielbergian-wannabe Abrams project.
I’m not sure what could’ve helped this film stick together better. Hathaway is pretty good as the mom, although she channels Shelley Duvall’s bug-eyed scared face from The Shining a little too shamelessly. McGregor, normally a very reliable actor, feels miscast as the sad dad. He brings a weird vibe to this movie, as if he really didn’t enjoy making it. He seems uncomfortable.
This movie also has one of the worst titles of the year. I understand they are going for a Twilight Zone vibe, like the famous “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” episode, but The End of Oak Street doesn’t grab. I’m not saying it needed to be called Holy Shit, These Dinosaurs Are Going to Eat My Ass!, but something a little more electric or closer to the plotline would’ve made more sense.
Retitle this for home viewing. Suburban Raptors. Backyard Dinos. Anne Hathaway Looking Badass in Gloria Vanderbilt Jeans Toting a Shotgun. Prehistoric Suburban Nightmare. Dinos Ate My Cat. Dinos Screwed With My Backyard Barbecue. Any of these would work better than the chosen title.
I had big hopes for The End of Oak Street, but, as with a lot of movies these past few months, it’s a bit of a letdown. I enjoyed enough of it to know that there was a good movie fighting to get out of this edit. Hopefully this is just a mediocre detour for Mitchell, and he’ll return to his It Follows glory days in the near future.