‘It Ends’: Is Alexander Ullom the Next Great Horror Director?
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- Alexander Ullom's debut horror 'It Ends,' shot for $80,000 across three rounds of filming over 28 days in Florida parks, follows four recent college graduates trapped on a seemingly endless road after a mob attack, opening theatrically August 21 via Neon.
- 'It Ends' premiered at SXSW in March 2025 to critical raves but failed to attract a distributor, with Ullom ready to upload it to YouTube before a chance encounter at Universal's 'Jurassic World Rebirth' press event led filmmaker/influencer Nicolas Curcio to post about the film online after Ullom literally hopped a security fence to pitch him.
- Letterboxd's CEO spotted Curcio's post and slotted 'It Ends' into the new Letterboxd Video Store for undistributed films, where Neon discovered it and picked it up — making it possibly one of the first films to be pirated online before earning a theatrical run, per Ullom.
- Neon has launched an 'Endless Screening challenge' at NYC's Metro Private Cinema in which four-person teams compete in a 36-hour marathon screening (roughly 25 consecutive showings), earning $0.25 per minute survived up to $540 each plus a potential $500 team bonus and $250 in concessions credit.
- Ullom wrapped principal photography on his sophomore film '4 x 4: The Event' — which he describes as 'balls-to-the-wall gore and violence' and Neon has billed as ''Battle Royale' meets 'Saw' meets 'Climax'' — just two days before the 'It Ends' press day, with Neon also distributing that film.
- Ullom cast the film via an Instagram open call, landing Mitchell Cole (an HVAC repair guy from the Florida panhandle) and three others who 'punched up' the dialogue, and says he began writing 'It Ends' at 21 while processing his own aimless post-college malaise and immersion in early 'Backrooms' internet threads.
Why it matters: Ullom's path — an $80,000 debut that nearly went to YouTube before a Letterboxd Video Store slot and a Neon theatrical deal — sketches a new micro-budget horror pipeline in which Letterboxd acts as a discovery layer turning online buzz into theatrical releases. For Neon, signing both 'It Ends' and the gore-heavy '4 x 4: The Event' is a cheap first-move bet on a 28-year-old filmmaker whose Letterboxd-to-screen arc they clearly want to own.
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