Entertainment
It Ends Review: Life May Feel Pointless, but at Least the Horror Movies Are Great
Let’s face it: We are not OK.
Horror movies have a beautiful — and beautifully nasty — way of reflecting our anxiety back at us. That’s how you know they’re working. Horror filmmakers aren’t just trying to reach the audience, they’re trying to scare the audience. So it’s in everyone’s best interest, artistically and financially, to keep track of what’s keeping everybody up at night.
There was an illuminating and lucrative wave of ultraviolent, ultra-cynical horror films in the 2000s (“Saw,” “Hostel”), a response to the vulnerability Americans felt after 9/11, and our culture’s violent, ugly response to suddenly feeling vulnerable. The found footage genre (“Paranormal Activity,” “Unfriended”), besides being inexpensive, finally boomed when a whole generation started carrying cameras around in their pockets and living online in videos which will, one day, be the only evidence we existed at all.
Alexander Ullom’s beguiling directorial debut “It Ends” is a vital entry in the latest horror zeitgeist, which tunes into a younger generations’ sense of futility. What, after all, is the point of living if our futures came pre-ruined, and are unresponsive to our desires and actions? We seem to have fallen through the cracks of the world, a la “Backrooms,” lost and forgotten. Bodily autonomy can be ripped away at any moment by mediocre, sexist men wielding too much power — politics by way of “Obsession’s” One Wish Willow — who view other people as property to be hoarded and maintained.
If we have no power to change our lives, to protect ourselves, or build a better future, what are we supposed to do? Just keep going like nothing’s wrong? “It Ends” finds a simple, miserable metaphor to having nothing to live for but still being expected to live. Four friends drive down a road chosen for them by a supposedly trustworthy GPS system — a tidy example of our malaise about the corporate takeover of every aspect of existence, even our sense of direction — and they just keep driving. The road never ends, there’s nowhere to turn, and if they stop long enough to try to solve their problems they’re swarmed by desperate, violent strangers begging to be saved.
After all, our heroes may not have hope but at least they have a car. In this economy we should be so lucky. But the car never runs out of gas and its passengers have been robbed of their basic human desires. They no longer need to eat or sleep. Their sex drives have vanished. They can try to amuse themselves along the way, to fill their days with routine and art and the occasional primal scream. But when all that fails to distract them, there is only a long, monotonous road ahead.
It reflects back how our own roads turn up as soon as we wonder if we should settle down, as though a future of pointless tedium is all that lies ahead and we may as well get used to the idea now.
At least, that’s one theory. James (Phinehas Yoon) becomes obsessed with solving the puzzle in “It Ends,” searching for patterns, for meaning, for loopholes, driving himself mad with the idea that anything means anything and there’s some way to emerge from his journey victorious. Tyler (Mitchell Cole), a stalwart veteran who broke up with his girlfriend just because she wanted to take him to a pumpkin patch, isn’t built for extended human interaction. Day (Akira Jackson) recently tried to end her own life and Fisher (Noah Toth) is prone to panic attacks. How will these sensitive souls handle a perpetual, heartless grind?
“It Ends” is terrifying. It’s not brutal. There’s a good chance these kids are dead already so threatening their mortality doesn’t mean much. Like Gooseworx’s heartbreaking “The Amazing Digital Circus,” Alexander Ullom’s film accepts the possibility that our lives cannot be changed, so what matters is either how we live them or why we decide to give up. Either way we are the company we keep. The road leads to nowhere but we’re all along for the ride.
“It Ends” makes us wonder whether living is worth the trouble and if giving up has its merits. God damn, that’s disturbing. Ullom may be equating “giving up” with self-harm but that’s only one interpretation. People abandon hope in all kinds of ways. We turn our backs on our dreams. We settle for circumstances which could be worse because trying to improve them is exhausting. In “It Ends” — a title which could be a promise or an omen — extracting yourself from a pointless existence is the same as accepting it.
Watching Alexander Ullom’s “It Ends” is to watch a generation wander a world where they affect nothing, live in constant fear or denial, and — in one way or another — come to terms with their plight. It’s profoundly troubling and all the more powerful for its simplicity. It’s not just something to do while we keep on going and going and going, until for one reason or another we stop. It asks big questions, the questions that are worth pondering. What is the meaning of it all? Or is the wondering the point all along? And if so, is wondering worth the bother?
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Entertainment
Megyn Kelly Spends Nearly 6 Minutes Celebrating Meghan Markle, Prince Harry Exit
Megyn Kelly used a decent chunk of her podcast Thursday to rail against Meghan Markle and Prince Harry — and celebrate their highly publicized exit from the United States.
On Thursday’s episode of “The Megyn Kelly Show,” the host went long on the royal couple’s announcement that they were pulling up stakes in California and heading back to the U.K. Kelly treated this as the most positive news of the year and spent nearly six minutes of her show celebrating their “self-deportations.”
“Two important self-deportations that can unite all of America. This is the first thing we’ve been able to agree upon in over a decade. Meghan and Harry are leaving,” Kelly said. “Praise Jesus! They’re going. Get back to the U.K. Go become somebody else’s problem. We are sick of you. We have enough weirdos, self-narcissistic, obsessed Americans already. The country’s full. It’s saturated. Go home, Harry. We never wanted you here to begin with … We all wanted William. No one wanted you. I don’t know how we got stuck with Meghan.”
Kelly added: “Anyway, we had safely ejected her to Canada. Then you came along, took her over to U.K. That was fine. It was a hot mess for you, but we were still living our beautiful lives. And now finally, she’s going back to the U.K., and we all know why. There’s many speculations out there about why, but I’ll tell you why. Because they can’t stand not being adored and famous and welcomed everywhere and getting the reservations they want and the attention they want. ‘We want privacy.’ We all know it’s a lie.”
Watch the full takedown below:
The BBC reported the royal relocation on Wednesday when it was revealed the couple’s children Archie and Lilibet had been enrolled in a British school.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are expected to live outside of London and it’s unclear if the move would also lead to a reconciliation with the rest of the royal family.
“They’re going back to a place where they can feel special, and they can get reservations at any restaurant, and the tabloid attention will pick back up because it’s withered down to an arid dryness now, and they can’t stand it,” Kelly finished. “She can’t stand it, but he can’t stand it either. He’s just as petty and small as she is.”
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movies
Amazon Leaks Jason Statham’s ‘Mutiny’ Movie On Prime; Buyers Fume
Amazon is in choppy waters after accidentally leaking Jason Statham‘s latest big-budget action pic Mutiny on its Prime Video service days before the movie is released in theaters.
Deadline understands that the movie was up for a matter of hours earlier this week after a mistake led to it being posted on Prime’s product detail page that typically shows trailers.
Some subscribers couldn’t believe what they were watching. For free. One posted to X: “I’m watching Jason Statham’s new movie Mutiny, streaming on Amazon for free right now. This has to be a huge mistake, right? My theater has showtimes starting this week!”
“Someone is getting fired over at Amazon. They uploaded Jason Statham’s new movie Mutiny on Prime a day before it hits theaters,” another user said.
Lionsgate is releasing the action thriller this weekend in U.S. theaters and is one of a number of buyers understood to be very unimpressed. According to multiple sources close to the project, the film is already being pirated in different territories. That’s a problem for Lionsgate and potentially an even bigger problem for international buyers, some of whom who aren’t releasing until later. We hear the film opened well in France and Middle East yesterday before the leak snafu came to light.
Those companies, like Lionsgate, have put millions into acquiring the film and marketing it. It’s a $50 million-plus net movie. Lionsgate is understood to have paid eight-figures for it. We hear that some cinema chains are also up in arms.
Now the question we’re hearing from those close to the movie is what Amazon, a Premium VOD partner on the pic, can or will do to make good.
“This is an unprecedented situation,” one fuming international buyer told us. “It’s a major f*ck-up. I’ve never been in this situation before. What’s clear is that this is a multimillion-dollar problem for Amazon and buyers will expect a check to be written to help resolve this.”
One person who worked on the project said: “What the hell? There are serious repercussions for distributors here.” Another overseas buyer simply told us: “Oh my god.”
We understand Lionsgate’s anti-piracy team is trying to mitigate the damage. Meanwhile, international buyers are trying to coordinate a formal message to Amazon.
Jean-François Richet directs Mutiny, in which Statham is framed for murdering his billionaire industrialist boss, leaving him on the run as he works to uncover an international conspiracy. Statham produces with Marc Butan.
This isn’t the first time a streamer has got into hot water for being lax over the safety of a movie. Netflix is currently being sued for $105 million after a hard drive of an unreleased Nicolas Cage movie, the World War II thriller Fortitude, was stolen from its office. The lawsuit faults Netflix for losing the copy, but the studio has denied responsibility for the loss, saying it was delivered “without proper industry-standard safeguards.”
Amazon, Lionsgate, reps for Statham and the film’s producers declined comment on the Mutiny leak.
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Entertainment
Jennifer Passovoy Named Head of Unscripted Video at Pave
Jennifer Passovoy has been named a senior producer and head of unscripted video at Pave Studios, TheWrap has exclusively learned.
The five-time Emmy-winning producer previously worked for Paramount as a supervising producer, specifically working on the teams for “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and “Ink Master.”
Starting Aug. 31, Passovoy will run a new vertical for Pave, focused on unscripted streaming series and celebrity content. She will report directly to Pave Studios founder and chief executive Max Cutler.
“Jennifer Passovoy’s work remains cemented in the human connections that she has been able to develop over her impressive career,” Cutler said in a Thursday statement. “At her core, Jennifer is a pop culture historian who understands a creator’s authentic voice while translating it into content that doesn’t just perform, but lasts.”
Previously, Passovoy worked as show lead on Pave productions “Khloé in Wonder Land” and “Horoscope Weekly: Astrology with Aliza Kelly.” At Paramount, she supported the show teams from casting and story development through to post production, specifically driving “Drag Race’s” highest-rated premiere in six years during her tenure.
“The best unscripted TV has always come down to finding people who are magnetic on camera and building a world around them. That talent is everywhere now, and most of it is coming up outside the traditional pipeline,” Passovoy shared. “Pave is built to move on that, and I look forward to applying my experience as a producer of hit unscripted TV shows to the creator economy, and working with celebrities and rising stars to tell great stories across platforms.”
Pave Studios is a media company that specializes in creator-led IP across video, audio, live experiences and more. Their vertical OpenMind produces the podcast “Khloé in Wonder Land.” Its Crime House vertical has become a leading home for premium true crime stories, and Rewind launched in 2026 around the popular history genre. The network also signed “Love on the Spectrum” star Connor Tomlinson to host one of their podcasts for the history vertical.
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