Best Part about THE END OF OAK STREET? The Time Travel… to 1982. Thank you, Production Design Team!
The best part of The End of Oak Street is the time travel. Not the plot-point, prehistoric time travel. I’m talking about walking through suburban 1982. Because the production design team, art designer, and set designer understood the assignment and aced it.
Spoiler-Free Synopsis / Summary
After an annual block party at the end of Oak Street, the Platt family notices a strange strobing light, and then realizes their neighborhood has been overrun by dinosaurs.
Trailer for The End of Oak Street (2026) written and directed by David Robert Mitchell and produced by J.J. Abrams
The Premise, with Spoilers
So, somehow the end of Oak Street arbitrarily switched places with I think the same location 200 million+ years ago. How or why that happened are not acknowledged—either because it’s not that kind of movie, or the script needed another draft or two to work out its concept…
I’m leaning toward the latter option, because even though we were transported back in time, we were not transported to a different place. At least, I don’t think we were, but I can’t tell where we are in the U.S.A., not from regional accents, dress, weather—not even license plates.
However. I can tell when we were because the best part of this film is the time travel. Not the plot-point, prehistoric time travel. I’m talking about walking through suburban 1982. Because the production design team, art designer, and set designer understood the assignment and aced it.
1982 called from the pay phone
Dear set designer Maya Shimoguchi, walking to the end of Oak Street felt like walking back in time. Your work is the believable time travel of The End of Oak Street.
I learned later that the movie’s filming location was largely in the metro-Atlanta area, so that tracks, since that’s where we’re from. Their locations were specifically in picturesque Decatur, like Westwood Ave.
Image courtesy of Warner Bros.
Oak Street’s Exteriors
These “neighborhoods contain mature trees, detached houses, broad lawns and street layouts that can be dressed for the period without the visual clutter of newer development,” says the source above, but more than that, the houses feel older than the ‘80s. And they should have felt that way, because suburbanites don’t remodel their homes every single year—or at least, they didn’t in the 1980s.
The protagonist Platt family lives in what appears to be a ‘70s-style split-level house. It could be a straight-up two-story, though, since Audrey (Maisy Stella) does go read on the actual roof several times, which allows her to see the giant thing coming out of the woods in the back yard.
Either way, there’s an attached garage. That’s great news for a survival movie! You can drive your metal cage directly into the haven of your house! Except that, alas, this is 1982, and the person in the passenger seat has to manually lift the garage door.
I’ve said it before, but I love a period piece for the parameters it puts on a film.
Although the Platts are in a split-level, the librarian (Emily Kuroda) lives in what appears to be a 19th-century ancestral manor. Let me tell you, reader, when Denise and Greg notice that portal open up by their widows’ walk, I whispered back to my friend, “I am so excited for them to break into that house!”
Image courtesy of Missy Parker, set decorator for THE END OF OAK STREET.
Oak Street’s Interiors
The best part of these period houses is their lack of open-concept. The action really has to adapt to the space.
One elderly neighbor Mrs. Huddleston (Anne Gee Byrd) lives in a 1950s style ranch, and although it was a bummer to see her mutilated in her kitchen, that kitchen was amazing! From the linoleum to the gingerbread cut-outs over the sink, I love a ‘50s kitchen. Even when it’s a galley floor plan, which is usually a dealbreaker for me. In this case, it provided a corridor for the pursuant Spinosaurus.
The infrastructure adds to the architecture of these homes regarding to the action of the film. No central air conditioning, so of course the little boy, Brian (Christian Convery) left an upstairs window open. And of course, an enormous prehistoric snake slithered out of the neighbor’s above-ground pool and in through the window, down the staircase, around the kitchen island with the open-shelving on the corner cabinet and right into Anne Hathaway’s face! (Could the snake have been a Titanoboa? Maybe, but Titanoboa wouldn’t have existed alongside a Spinosaurus—so my internet search is either incorrect, or it’s an inconsistency. It’s 50/50, imo.)
And while we’re discussing kitchens, where did the set decorator Missy Parker source those avocado-green appliances? When the electricity goes out, it makes all the difference to see an authentic, period-appropriate fridge door slam quick to keep the cold air in so the food doesn’t go bad.
Image courtesy of Warner Bros.
Honestly, this experience of walking through time-capsule kitchens and sunken living room conversation pits—minus the flesh-eating dinosaurs—is what I always hope to see when I go to an estate sale.
(A real quick PSA: please, I am begging you, stop remodeling vintage homes. Your style is your style, but there’s only so much of this stuff left… I could throat-punch the guy who painted our wood-paneled den Agreeable Grey.)
Time Travel and the Ending, Explained
Alas, although the production design and set decoration amplify the action, the 1982 setting is underutilized in the element where it could have been the most valuable, the dialogue. We could have had a double period piece, full of pop-culture references and timely dialogue when we go Jumanji-style into the… what is it, Jurassic? Late Cretaceous?
Instead, we just don’t deal with computers/internet tech. I never thought I would say that a period setting was a cop-out, but here I find myself.
What genre is it?
I saw this film with my friend who is also the mother of young children. When the family dog trots on screen, she leaned over and whispered, “Great, so this movie is either going to be the kind of movie that kills the dog, or it’s not going to have the balls to kill the dog.”
Does the dog die?
She was exactly right, except for the movie never really lands on its tone. One moment, a pterodactyl is lifting their neighbor off the roof by his head, and the next, Denise (Anne Hathaway) is taking a Polaroid of her husband Greg (Ewan McGregor) next to two brontosauruses having sex doggy-style.
Is The End of Oak Street kid-friendly?
My initial answer: no. The Motion Picture Association rated it PG-13, but some scenes are so graphic (granted, they’re very clearly CGI) that I would not take a child under thirteen years old to see it.
I wouldn’t call it horror. I wouldn’t say that it’s scary. I also wouldn’t really call it science fiction because there is no science in it… not even fictionalized science—which I think is a flaw in the writing. We don’t have to dwell on the specifics (in fact, please don’t), but I would have liked a little bit of something to acknowledge we’re a curious audience.
Let me answer your “is it kid-friendly?” question with a question: looking back on Jurassic Park now, as an adult… lol, do youthink you should have seen that creature-feature movie at the age you saw it?
The End of Oak Street releases in U.S.A. theaters Friday, August 14.
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