With The End of Oak Street hitting theaters this weekend, director David Robert Mitchell and producer J.J. Abrams are making the rounds in the press, promoting the new film in every way they can. This is refreshing to see in a great many ways. For one, literally any marketing for the film is better than that studio-sanctioned AI dog podcast debacle that went viral for all the wrong reasons last week. But even beyond that, it’s just great to see David Robert Mitchell making the rounds, period.
The writer-director made a handful of films in the 2010s, such as The Myth of the American Sleepover, It Follows, and Under the Silver Lake. But since then, things have been relatively quiet on the Mitchell front, which was honestly a bummer. He’s a clearly obscenely talented filmmaker whose work on those films played an instrumental role in influencing other filmmakers of the time and in the years since (it’s no coincidence that his go-to DP, Michael Gioulakis, was recruited by other masterful filmmakers like Jordan Peele and M. Night Shyamalan), and each year that passed without a new film by him was a shame. So to see him back with The End of Oak Street and getting stellar reviews once more is terrific, and now, he’s revealing some even more promising news.
"Poltergeist [is] a key inspiration point," Mitchell told ScreenRant.
This is fascinating for a number of reasons. Firstly, much like The End of Oak Street itself, Poltergeist was a collaboration between a big-time blockbuster producer and an innovative horror director. There it was, Steven Spielberg and Tobe Hooper; here it is, Abrams and Mitchell.
Mitchell goes on to elaborate in the interview that the big reason why Poltergeist became such a touchstone for the film was the ways in which that movie so deeply anchors the audience in the reality of suburban family life, giving the film an emotional core that keeps viewers so thoroughly engaged even prior to all of the hauntings. Swap out the ghosts for dinosaurs, and The End of Oak Street follows a very similar pattern, primarily focusing on the struggles of the Platt family, as led by Ewan McGregor and Anne Hathaway.
I’m sure it goes without saying, but I’ll reiterate here just in case: Poltergeist is a phenomenal film and a terrific source of inspiration for Mitchell’s new film. The entire vibe of the trailers for the film has been somewhere between The Twilight Zone and classic Amblin vibes, and Poltergeist is already pretty literally at the intersection of those two things. The movie was a Spielberg joint during the prime Amblin days and was literally a loose remake of a Twilight Zone episode, “Little Girl Lost.” Filter that through Mitchell’s distinct lens and Abrams’ blockbuster sensibilities, and it looks like you’ve got a solid recipe for success with The End of Oak Street.
All in all, I’m just incredibly excited that David Robert Mitchell is back in the limelight. He’s a supremely talented filmmaker who deserves all of the great reviews and praise The End of Oak Street is already earning. I’m jazzed to catch it and am eagerly anticipating his upcoming It Follows sequel. It’s a good time to be a David Robert Mitchell fan.
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