‘It Ends’ Is The Gen Z Horror Movie Of The Year

Earlier this year, Curry Barker and Kane Parsons became young Hollywood phenoms in quick succession. An actor and sketch comedian, the 26-year-old Barker wrote, edited, and directed Obsession, which is the story of a meek romantic who uses a magical novelty toy to make his crush fall in love with him with predictably disastrous results. Parsons, at 21, directed Backrooms, a feature-length adaptation of his own creepypasta-inspired web series about a labyrinthine extradimensional space that serves as a bizarre simulacrum of the real world.

Both films were released two weeks apart in May and broke multiple commercial records. Having made half-a-billion dollars, Obsession is not just one of the highest-grossing movies of the year but one of the most successful horror films of all time. While Backrooms might trail Obsession as merely the second-highest grossing horror feature of 2026, it’s also the fifth most profitable independent feature in history; Parsons became the youngest director ever to helm a studio-backed film, besting even Orson Welles.

Baker and Parsons got their start with popular YouTube channels, which has led agents and producers to scour the internet for the next young, digital-native filmmaker with a built-in following and an original story that might become an enormously profitable feature. That search is ongoing, but another twentysomething filmmaker with roots in the internet has recently released his debut feature, It Ends, a horror-ish film with a distinctly existentialist bent. His name is Alexander Ullom.