Cue the release of The End of Oak Street, now in theaters. Written and directed by David Robert Mitchell (It Follows, Under the Silver Lake) and produced by J.J. Abrams (Cloverfield, Super 8), Oak Street follows the Platt family—husband and wife Greg (Ewan McGregor) and Denise (Anne Hathaway), their two children Audrey (Maisy Stella) and Brian (Christian Convery), and their rambunctious dog Starbuck (played by two different pups named Brisket and Buzz)—after a mysterious cosmic event transports their 1980s suburban Michigan neighborhood back to a primitive era. What follows is a brutal fight for survival against aggressive, hungry, and carnivorous dinosaurs who quickly turn the community’s previously idyllic streets into their own personal feeding ground. There’s an absurd scientific explanation for these events, but the movie doesn’t spend too much time on it, which is mostly for the best within the bounds of its sub-100-minute run. Instead, The End of Oak Street is a thriller about suburban unease and domestic tension, with a primeval twist.
