‘It Ends’ is like a Gen-Z ‘Twilight Zone’ episode

“It Ends” begins with the same setup as a lot of horror movies. Four teenagers in a car at night turn off the main highway and onto a spooky road.

And then . . . that’s pretty much it. No creepy cabin. No werewolves. No sinister hitchhiker with a hook for a hand. Just the four of them, driving . . . and driving, and driving, and driving.

While writer-director Alex Ullom’s is being positioned as a horror movie, it’s really not – I feel for the unsuspecting audience at a recent “AMC Scream Unseen” preview expecting a jump-scare gorefest. Instead, it’s more of an existential thriller in the vein of Gus Van Sant’s “Gerry,” where the suspense comes not from the fear that something is around the next corner, but the fear that nothing is around the next corner.

Ullom quickly sketches the four protagonists. Three of the friends, James (Phinehas Yoon), Day (Akira Jackson) and Fisher (Noah Toth), are recent college graduates who have been picked up from school by a fourth friend, Tyler (Mitchell Cole) who they’ve sort of lost touch with.

In one part of the Jeep Cherokee, Fisher and James are having a playful argument about who would win in a fight, 50 hawks or a man with a rifle. At the other side of the car, Day is telling Tyler about her bleak post-collegiate job prospects, how she needs to get on her “Ziprecruiter grind.” Ullom deftly captures the Gen Z experience in these scenes, of papering over worries of an uncertain future with memes and jokes. Given the options, I’d probably rather talk about the 50 hawks, too.

The creepiness of “It Ends” is not in the answer, but in the not knowing. Not knowing where you’re going, and not knowing if there even is a destination to get to. As a metaphor for post-collegiate angst, it really couldn’t be more on the money.

Then Tyler turns off the main highway and onto a paved road running through a forest. The route is beautiful, creepy . . . and endless. The turn Tyler is looking for never comes up. When he turns around to get back to the highway, the road just keeps going on and on. The map on the GPS shows an unending blue line, a literal road to nowhere.

While I’ve heard “The End of Oak Street” compared to a “Twilight Zone” episode, it’s Ullom’s film that really bears the fingerprints of a Rod Serling idea, putting ordinary people in an extraordinary and unexplainable situation and seeing how they fare.

As they foursome drive, the car never runs out of gas, their phones never run out of battery life (although they can’t get a signal), and they never get hungry. But if they stop the car for too long, raving maniacs emerge from the woods to rush their car. The only solution is to keep driving.

As they drive, the passengers (and the audience) try to cycle through possible answers. Is it the afterlife? A drug trip? A wormhole? An ancient curse? They start to learn some of the rules of this strange road, but the creepiness of “It Ends” is not in the answer, but in the not knowing. Not knowing where you’re going, and not knowing if there even is a destination to get to. As a metaphor for post-collegiate angst, it really couldn’t be more on the money.

Ullom makes the most of presumably limited resources as a filmmaker, with only four actors, one car and (presumably) the same strip of roadway used over and over. The chemistry between the four leads is strong, with James’ analytical mind playing off against the more fatalistic resignation of the other passengers. I’m not saying I want to be stuck in a car forever with these four people, but it’s enjoyable for 90 minutes or so.

“It Ends” even becomes pretty funny as the foursome gets used to their predicament over time, coming to treat those raving maniacs as a mild nuisance “Shaun of the Dead”-style. The message, both satirical but oddly hopeful, is that human beings can get used to anything.

I’m not saying that “It Ends” won’t test the patience of some viewers, especially those hoping for a more straightforward horror film. But as a weird, chilling little exercise, it’s worth the trip.

“It Ends” is playing in limited release in theaters and will expand into more theaters on Friday. In Madison, it will play at AMC Fitchburg 18 and Marcus Point.