The End of Oak Street Review

“Is that a fucking dinosaur?” – Greg Platt

And so ends another summer blockbuster season, a pretty good one too. And it closes in style with a film that’s been on the radar since the spring when the trailers started popping up at the multiplex. Anticipation has been high from the beginning for this one, as it seemed to have a vibe that I respond strongly to. Spoiler – I wasn’t disappointed.

Okay, so we all know by now that I’m a sucker for dinosaur movies – right? I mean, come ON when have I not been (possibly) over enthusiastic for a Jurassic Park movie? We all know it stems all the way back to King Kong, so there’s a lot of my movie watching history there. But it isn’t just dinosaurs that lit my imagination up like a fourth of July firework here. It’s the setting.

Jurassic Park: The Lost World was a big hit for me, apart from the scene with the Tyrannosaurs attacking the truck, sending it over a cliff, my high point was the T-Rex loose in suburban San Diego. Now we have a whole movie that puts dinosaurs in a suburb. But that’s only part of the attraction for me. I have a love and fascination for two anthology sci-fi TV series, filmed in black and white and shown in the early sixties. One was The Outer Limits, the other and still my all-time favourite TV show, was The Twilight Zone. A big factor in these was extraordinary things happening to ordinary people, which is always an attention grabber with me. And were I to compile a list of my favourite episodes, then The Twilight Zone’s The Monsters are Due on Maple Street would be one, as would A Feasibility Study from The Outer Limits.

Both feature ordinary unremarkable suburbs, with ordinary unremarkable people living there. The Monsters are Due on Maple Street has a suburb targeted by extra terrestrials who shut the power off on some houses, not others and from there sow paranoia, mistrust and a feeing that there’s something unknown and menacing at the end of the road. All while the aliens watch. A Feasibility Study has an entire suburb uprooted and set down on an alien world overnight. I’ve always been fond of those stories, where you can wake up one morning and the end of the street isn’t what it was.

This is precisely what happens here and it’s precisely what I was hoping for.

I hadn’t realised that the writer/director of The End of Oak Street is David Robert Mitchell who wrote and directed It Follows which really caught my imagination back in 2014. Add to that J.J. Abrams as a producer and we have a perfect mix of creative talent.

Set in 1982 and starting in what I can only term an idyllic Spielbergian suburb on a summer day where the entire neighbourhood has gathered, we meet the Platt family. Greg, the father (Ewan MacGregor) is moonlighting as a pizza delivery driver, unknown to his wife he has just lost his main job and this is his only source of income. Denise (Anne Hathaway) is his homemaker wife, also a frustrated novelist - unknown to her family. Audrey and Brian (Maisy Stella and Christian Convery) are their teenaged kids. Audrey is interested in stellar phenomena and wants to go to Cornell University to study with Carl Sagann when she’s old enough. When some strangely vivid lights wake Brian up one night, things begin to take an unexpected turn.

The following morning, everything seems quieter than normal. Heading out to take a look, because the power’s out, and the dog’s missing. Greg and Denise find that a two mile wide circular area has literally been transplanted to prehistoric times, their suburb is surrounded by jungle vegetation and volcanoes. As if THAT wasn’t problem enough, the surrounding landscape is populated by dinosaurs who are both curious and hungry.

The Platts are besieged by pteradons, allosaurs, raptors and definitely the biggest snake ever seen on screen. Back down Anaconda, the Titanoboa is your daddy. (Worse, that thing, which I’d never heard of did actually exist 60 million years ago in South America – it’s neither long enough ago nor far enough away for my comfort.) All are brought to stunning life by Industrial Light & Magic, who have even improved on their Jurassic Park/World work. Their dinosaurs this time reflect the current thinking that rather than be purely scaly and reptilian, some of their movements are more bird-like and they have feathers and fur. But don’t worry, they still have a taste for meaty humans which explains why the neighbourhood’s so quiet. Also, they seem very stealthy – the number of times the Platts are walking around or just standing in one spot, unaware that there’s a pteradon, allosaur or a 50 foot snake behind them, but then in similar circumstances, I’m sure I’d be standing and staring too – when not running for my life in a blind panic and looking for a way back to the 21st century.

It’s an immensely satisfying sci-fi/action thriller that’s perfect to wind up the summer. But don’t fret – the fall season is well on its way with some juicy horror movies scheduled for when the evenings draw in.

For now though, dinosaurs in suburbia, family in constant peril, awesome effects, great time had – let’s get that rating. It HAS to be…

Rob Rating = 10