Just when you thought we had finally passed through the era of haunted-child versions of songs in movie trailers, along comes the new The End of Oak Street trailer, which features a child singing an eerie version of The Flintstones theme. This might have been sort of funny if the trailer had let us simply infer that the suburban Platt family was, you know, in the past, but no: a few seconds later, one of the unfortunate Platt children asks, “We’re in the past, aren’t we?”
Were the dinosaurs a giveaway?
The End of Oak Street asks, What if your neighborhood were mysteriously up and moved to an era where dinosaurs roamed the planet? I feel moderately confident that the answer would be “You all get eaten,” but the Platts have sledgehammers and shotguns and if the trailer is anything to go by, a modicum of practicality not shared by their neighbors, many of whom get chomped. They also have a dog, and yes, the dog is going to fight a dinosaur, and no, I will not be watching this film, but you do you, friends.
Trailers for this film were a bit more appealing when they only hinted at the presence of large predators—and small, Twinkie (?)-stealing ones, which are much more endearing. Now, we get dinosaurs AND an abrupt slice through the earth under the neighborhood, which really does seem to have been picked up and time-traveled. Perhaps there is a very interesting how and why portion of this film, and the dinosaurs are only part of it?
The End of Oak Street stars Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor, both wearing clothes that are clearly of another era. (The Flintstones premiered in 1960, but this looks a decade or two later to me.) Their children are played by Maisy Stella and Christian Convery. The movie is written and directed by David Robert Mitchell (It Follows).
You too can visit the street that time forgot really messed with on August 14.
