The prehistoric beasts in The End of Oak Street make the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park look like Barney. Director David Robert Mitchell brings bloodthirsty bite to his Amblin-inspired creature feature, turning a tale of suburban angst into a dinosaur-infested thrill ride.

At a glance, the Platt family embodies the American dream: a loving family of four with a beautiful house and a loyal dog who spend their summer days barbecuing with the neighbours in a suburban utopia. But cracks are starting to show in the Platts’ Norman Rockwell-esque facade. Dad Greg (Ewan McGregor) pours more time into his side hustle, spending his summer nights away from home. Mom Denise (Anne Hathaway), meanwhile, skulks away to the basement to work on a secret novel about a woman pining to escape her family. Even their two children, Audrey (Maisy Stella) and Brian (Christian Convery), can feel the distance growing between their parents, but they’ve got problems they’re working through on their own.

So it’s almost a relief when a mysterious time warp sucks their entire neighbourhood back in time to a world without mortgages, 401(k)s, and college tuition. The trade-off, though, is something more daunting than the prospect of couples therapy in 1982. In this new world, carnivorous dinosaurs stalk the land, hellbent on feasting on these tasty human interlopers.

Now the Platts must work through their simmering resentments and become the best version of themselves if they have any hope of evading the hungry predators long enough to find their way back to the future.

The End of Oak Street delivers a love letter to 80s cinema, with an undeniable mean streak. The first half-hour plays out like Poltergeist, with an all-American family basking in the warm glow of the American dream, unaware of the everyone-for-themselves nightmare descending upon them. 

Charming performances across the board invite the audience to root for the Platts long before the first dinosaur shows its ferocious mug. Once the story steps into horror-sci-fi territory, the film delivers nonstop edge-of-your-seat menace. The best part is that Mitchell isn’t afraid to make his audience squirm — he’s the It Follows filmmaker after all. Much like The Temple of Doom or Gremlins, the film delivers a sweet PG-13 atmosphere that quickly sours into scares capable of inflicting emotional scarring on younger viewers.

Mitchell and DP Mike Gioulakis’ stylish camerawork elevates the pervasive sense of danger. At this point, any movie featuring CGI dinosaurs will inevitably get compared to Jurassic Park, but the duo’s reliance on building tension and teasing out big reveals feels truly Spielbergian. They make you feel a creature’s presence before all hell breaks loose, and forcing the audience to stew in anxiety makes the chases and skin-of-your-teeth escapes all the more satisfying.

The best movie monsters always work as metaphors for some broader idea. In The End of Oak Street, the dinosaurs function as terrifying monsters, but ultimately represent agents of change. This film makes for an interesting contrast to a couple of recent releases, The Invite and The Last House. Those films place families in closed-off, claustrophobic environments to confront difficult conversations that they’ve been avoiding. Here, transporting the couple in time places them in a different type of isolation. This plot device literally forces them out of their comfort zone — a world of comforts —  thrusting change upon people unable to move forward.

Denise and Greg may have lived in a suburban utopia, but they’re trapped long before the time warp strikes. They exist in a marital death spiral, living beneath the same roof and existing in their own worlds. Mitchell frames love and marriage not as an endpoint, but as a journey encompassing a couple’s evolving sense of self. Their Jurassic adventure forces them to understand that being a family and loving one another requires conscious effort, an understanding of each other’s needs, and above all, patience.

Summer movie season wouldn’t feel complete without a standout thrill ride like The End of Oak Street. It delivers savage fun and a clever, heartfelt story while paying homage to some beloved ’80s horror and sci-fi films. Watching poor schmucks get chewed up and spit out never loses its edge, but it’s the family dynamics at the heart of the story are what makes The End of Oak Street so satisfying. Beneath the joyful mayhem, Mitchell reminds us that survival is an instinct, but living together is a choice that makes survival worth the fight.

The End of Oak Street opens theatrically on Friday, August 14, via Warner Bros. Pictures.