‘The World Is a Lot Right Now’: Watch Kane Parsons and ‘It Ends’ Director Alex Ullom Try to Explain the Liminal Horror Craze

2026 has been the year of liminal horror. It started when Kane Parsons captivated audiences with his directorial debut “Backrooms,” which turned an open-source internet phenomenon about eerily lit rooms that never end into a blockbuster film franchise. And Neon is hoping to build on that momentum with another film by a Gen Z director, Alex Ullom‘s “It Ends.” The 2025 SXSW premiere follows a group of teenagers who find themselves driving down a road that never seems to end or take them anywhere, combining the unsettling vibes of “Backrooms” with roadtrip movie tropes.

To commemorate the film’s release, Parsons recently moderated a Q&A with Ullom following a screening of “It Ends” in Vancouver. IndieWire exclusively releases the video, which sees the two directors discussing everything from post-production workflows to the horrifying experience of being a young person in a world that often feels brutally unstable.

It wasn’t long before Ullom dropped the word “liminal,” drawing faux ire from Parsons who lamented that the subgenre has “become a whole crazy thing.” Ullom joked that “it’s your fault, by the way,” which Parsons reluctantly accepted before they launched into a more serious discussion about why young audiences are drawn to stories about transitional spaces with undefined boundaries.

“I think there’s just a general feeling across the board, in our age range that’s like ‘We’re on the precipice of a massive transition … something is coming,’” Ullom said. “Because things are off, this is not how things should be!”

Ullom continued, explaining that liminal horror films give audiences a temporary excuse to detach from an online world that can be difficult to make sense of. “I think that the Gen Z ennui and malaise is a way of processing. Although I don’t see detachment as an answer forever. There has to be some sort of moral cohesiveness with each other that will pull us out of that eventually. You can’t live in that forever, but it’s totally fair to live in. The world is a lot right now. One second you’re watching a dude’s head get blown off, and the next second you’re watching the Geico lizard twerking. That’s just natural existence now.”

A Neon release, “It Ends” is now playing in select theaters before expanding on Friday, August 28. Watch the conversation between Parsons and Ullom, an IndieWire exclusive, below.