A movie whose main promotional hook is that it’s produced by J.J. Abrams and features dinosaurs is probably a sure box office bet for its opening weekend. Cinephiles who may need more convincing might be intrigued by the director of The End of Oak Street, David Robert Mitchell, whose debut feature was It Follows, one of the more inventive indie horror movies of the last decade. But likely the aspect that will attract the most attention, at least from people of a certain age, will be its setting: American suburbia in the early 1980s, thus raising the possibility, given its genre (sci-fi), that it will deliver classic Spielberg thrills and emotional payoffs to those with a nostalgia jones for that kind of stuff, like viewers who made Stranger Things the most successful streamed drama series of all time. 

The Platt family is suitably generic, but Mitchell’s script tosses some dramatic spice into the stew by making them borderline dysfunctional. Unbeknownst to his family, dad Greg (Ewan McGregor) has been laid off from work and is “moonlighting” as a pizza delivery man, a job that irks his homemaker wife Denise (Anne Hathaway), who secretly channels disillusionment with her domestic lot into auto-fiction. Teen daughter Audrey (Maisy Stella) is for some unexplained reason put down for her obsession with astronomy, while her younger brother Brian (Christian Convery) is going through the requisite rebellious motions by acting out in ways that border on the violent. These soap opera elements get tossed one night when the earth shakes, the house is bombarded by strange lights, and the power and water shut down. In the morning, things seems to have changed, but it takes a few minutes for the Platts, as well as their neighbors, to realize that their street has somehow been transported back to the Jurassic Age and that big lizards are hiding in the newly emergent tropical flora. Chasing, munching, and screaming ensue.

Because It Follows, per its title, was centered on people being stalked by an invisible entity, Mitchell knows how to stage elaborate chase-and-run scenes, and the set pieces are quite clever; some, in fact, disturbingly graphic in the way they relieve tension, but nonetheless funny for the exact same reason. But while Mitchell throws around clues regarding the mechanism of the time-slip that brings all this mayhem about, everything feels arbitrary. A good fantasy does not need to explain itself in order to be effective, but The End of Oak Street keeps teasing a familiarity with hard science that it never delivers on, which means the Spielbergian sentimental ending, designed to resolve all the existential problems in the story, including the interpersonal ones plaguing the Platts, feels even phonier. 

The gory humor in Matt Bettinelli-Olpin’s and Tyler Gillett’s Ready or Not 2: Here I Come is even more cartoonish and works more successfully within the narrow scope of its entertainment purview. The story begins at the exact moment the first movie, Ready or Not, ended, with Grace (Samara Weaving), having survived a night of being hunted almost dinosaur style by her new in-laws, the Le Domas family, as part of a bizarre tradition regarding new members, sitting on the steps of the mansion she’s just burned down, covered in blood and waiting for an ambulance. However, Grace’s delivery from evil is short-lived as members of the Satanic cult her in-laws belonged to assemble from across the globe at the order of the paterfamilias (David Cronenberg, of all people) to exact their revenge on the young, resourceful woman. 

This time Grace is accompanied by her sister, Faith (Kathryn Newton), who just happens to be at the hospital when the two surviving Le Domas heirs, Ursula and Titus (Sarah Michelle Gellar and Shawn Hatosy), come to abduct her. As in the first movie, killing is not really the point. Grace must be allowed a chance to elude her pursuers in an elaborate game of hide-and-seek, but this time the firepower is more sophisticated, not to mention more internationally sorted. 

The plot, as it were, mimics the first movie’s to a T in that it is nothing more than a series of violent confrontations between the cult’s various members and Grace, now aided—or maybe hampered is a better word—by her less savvy sister. What keeps the story interesting is the competitive rivalry among the cult participants to be the one who brings Grace down, an attitude Grace successfully exploits to her own superhuman advantage by tapping into her proletarian hatred of hubristic oligarchs. Here I Come doesn’t necessarily improve on the bloody shenanigans of its predecessor, but it does take it to the next class level. 

The End of Oak Street now playing in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060), Toho Cinemas Hibiya (050-6868-5068), Marunouchi Piccadilly (050-6875-0075), 109 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku (0570-060-109), Shinjuku Wald ) (03-5369-4955), Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Toho Cinemas Shibuya (050-6868-5002), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024).

Ready of Not 2: Here I Come now playing in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060), Toho Cinemas Hibiya (050-6868-5068), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Human Trust Cinema Shibuya (03-5468-5551), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024).

The End of Oak Street home page in Japanese

Ready of Not 2: Here I Come home page in Japanese

The End of Oak Street photo (c) 2026 Warner Bros. Ent.

Ready of Not 2: Here I Come photo (c) 2026 Searchlight Pictures