Sunday Scaries: Dinosaurs Are Finally Scary Again in ‘The End of Oak Street’

The Sunday Scaries are upon us once again! Yes, as the weekend concludes, most of us feel an oncoming sense of anticipatory dread about the week ahead. Anxiety about work manifests itself into a feeling that’s known as the Sunday Scaries. However, we at Awards Radar are here to combat that, by taking back the name. Now, we want you think about a horror-centric piece on the site when you hear the term. So, let us continue on with another installment of the Awards Radar Sunday Scaries! Today, we’re looking at how a new release has finally made dinosaurs on the big screen actually scary again…

This weekend, The End of Oak Street hit theaters. Not only is it an excellent science fiction blockbuster, it does something we really haven’t seen in a very long time. This film manages to make dinosaurs scary again. Despite some of the biggest movies of the past two decades or so having the giant animals running amok, they almost never come off as terrifying. At least, until now, as this flick has dino terror in spades.

My rave review here of the film kicks off like this, highlighting the dinosaur angle:

Dinosaurs are scary again! Now, I have a very soft spot in my heart for the Jurassic Park / Jurassic World franchise, but with the exception of the original film, none of them have been fully successful, or really struck any fear into your heart. The End of Oak Street is very different than those movies, owing as much to Land of the Lost as the Jurassic flicks, but this is as indebted to Steven Spielberg‘s Amblin Entertainment as anything I’ve seen in years. In terms of pure summer science fiction entertainment? This is aces.

The End of Oak Street absolutely rips, mixing an Amblin sense of fun and family dynamics with dinosaurs that aren’t just scary, but actually feel dangerous. Pushing the PG-13 rating to the absolute limit, every moment in this film feels designed to give summer audiences what they want. That it’s able to do so in consistently surprising ways is just a bonus. Few movies can manage to deliver on expectations while also upending them. A summer blockbuster? That’s even rarer, and part of what sets this one apart from the pack.

The first Jurassic Park had genuine dinosaur scares within. Since then, despite things to like about The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III, the horror mostly vanished. Jurassic World began the move towards less convincing CGI, and while Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom tried the most overtly for horror, Jurassic World: Dominion and Jurassic World Rebirth were just sci-fi adventures. The scares were gone. Now, they’re back.

What makes The End of Oak Street‘s dinosaurs work is they have a cruel streak to them, given that they’re just wild animals. There’s blood on the screen in a way we don’t usually see with these creatures, as well as a sense of randomness. If I were Steven Spielberg (and god willing, someday I will be), I would be handing a blank check over to David Robert Mitchell and begging him to take over the next Jurassic World film, now that Gareth Edwards has departed. I’m sure Mitchell isn’t interested, and hopefully will be on to They Follow next, but if there’s any chance he’d bring this aesthetic to the franchise, Spielberg and company should do everything they can to make it happen.

Here’s hoping that the Jurassic Park / Jurassic World franchise takes a lesson from The End of Oak Street, even if not the filmmaker himself. Making dinosaurs scary again would be huge. The sense of wonder is long gone, deposited wholly within the first Jurassic Park. Now, it’s time to turn up the terror…

Stay tuned for another Sunday Scaries installment next week!