Months before it was scheduled to hit theaters, the internet did what the internet does and began speculating that The End of Oak Street was actually a covert Cloverfield movie. It’s not, but the suspicion is understandable — this wouldn’t be the first time that producer J.J. Abrams pulled such a stunt. But what the film lacks in Cloverfield tie-ins it makes up for in fidelity to Abrams’ most prominent and lasting influence.
This movie is Spielbergian to its core, and writer-director David Robert Mitchell (It Follows, Under the Silver Lake) pays tribute to the king of the blockbuster with all the thrilling set pieces and kids in peril that fans could ever hope for. (It also pays homage to the director’s most recent movie by having the characters briefly feint towards wondering what God would think about their predicament.) While Mitchell does bring some of his own filmmaking flair to The End of Oak Street — there are no less than 20 split diopter shots in this movie, four of them in a single scene — for the most part, this is an affectionate and meticulous homage to an era and the filmmaker that defined it.
