The 2026 horror movie It Ends takes a simple late-night road trip and turns it into a terrifying nightmare. Written and directed by Alexander Ullom, the film follows a group of recent graduates—James, Day, Fisher and Tyler—who set out for one final hangout before their lives begin to move in different directions. Their journey takes an impossible turn when they accidentally enter a road that seems to have no end. Trapped inside a Jeep Cherokee, they face strange horrors, cosmic forces and the increasingly disturbing possibility that there may be no way home.
The movie premiered at SXSW on March 7, 2025, before receiving its U.S. theatrical release from NEON on August 21, 2026. A wider theatrical rollout followed on August 28.
But one of the most interesting things about It Ends is that although the story appears to take place on an endless, mysterious highway somewhere in the wilderness, the filmmakers actually created that world using a combination of Florida locations and virtual production technology.
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So, where was It Ends filmed? The production took place primarily in Florida, with Tallahassee and Gainesville serving as the major filming areas. The filmmakers also used a virtual-production facility associated with Florida State University for the movie’s extensive interior Jeep sequences.
Here’s a closer look at the locations and how the filmmakers transformed them into the movie’s terrifying endless road.
It Ends Release Date
It Ends officially premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March 2025. After its festival run and subsequent distribution journey, NEON acquired worldwide rights and brought the movie to theaters in 2026.
The movie received its initial U.S. theatrical release on August 21, 2026, with the film expanding to additional theaters on August 28, 2026.
The cast includes Phinehas Yoon as James, Akira Jackson as Day, Noah Toth as Fisher and Mitchell Cole as Tyler. Alexander Ullom serves as writer, director and editor.
Where Was It Ends Filmed?
The It Ends movie was filmed primarily in Florida, especially around Tallahassee and Gainesville. Interestingly, the director originally had another kind of landscape in mind. Ullom has explained that he would have liked to shoot somewhere resembling the Pacific Northwest, with huge trees and a more traditionally ominous wilderness. However, Florida was where the production had access to equipment, resources and helpful connections.
That practical decision ultimately became part of the film’s visual identity. Rather than trying to make Florida look like another part of the United States, It Ends uses its wooded roads and dense vegetation to create an isolated environment where the characters can become completely disconnected from civilization.
Tallahassee, Florida
Tallahassee is the principal filming location for It Ends. The Florida capital was especially important because the production was connected to Florida State University, where Ullom studied and where the filmmakers had access to valuable production resources.
A major portion of the movie takes place inside the Jeep Cherokee. Rather than simply driving a camera-equipped vehicle along roads for every scene, the filmmakers used a virtual-production facility to create the environment surrounding the stationary Jeep.
This was an important technical solution because the story requires the characters to appear as though they are driving endlessly through a changing landscape. The filmmakers reportedly went to extraordinary lengths to get the actual Jeep onto the soundstage. Because the vehicle could not fit through the facility’s door, they cut the Jeep into sections, brought the pieces inside and reassembled it on the stage.
The result allowed the actors to perform inside the real vehicle while the environment outside could be manipulated digitally.
Florida State University Virtual Production Facility
One of the most fascinating filming locations connected to the movie is the virtual-production facility at Florida State University in Tallahassee.
This location was used primarily for the interior car photography. The production did not put the actors inside a Jeep that was actually traveling endlessly through the woods. Instead, the vehicle was positioned on a controlled stage while virtual-production technology created the illusion of the road and surrounding environment.
This gave Ullom and his crew much greater control over lighting, background movement and the visual continuity of the endless road. It was especially useful because It Ends spends so much of its running time inside the Jeep. The technology also helped the filmmakers maintain consistent conditions while shooting complicated scenes that would have been extremely difficult to capture inside a moving vehicle.
Tallahassee’s Forested Areas
While the Jeep interiors were handled largely through virtual production, the woods themselves were filmed as real exterior locations.
Forested areas around Tallahassee provided the natural landscape surrounding the mysterious road. The director has explained that the Florida wilderness could be challenging to work in because of the heat and wildlife. In his interview with Dread Central, Ullom even recalled nearly stepping on a rattlesnake while filming.
That detail gives some idea of how different the real Florida environment was from the controlled atmosphere of the soundstage. The movie’s woods are deliberately unsettling. They are dense enough to make the characters feel trapped, while the road itself offers no obvious route back to civilization.
Gainesville, Florida
Gainesville was another important filming area.
The production shot additional exterior material in and around the Gainesville area, particularly in wooded environments.
These locations helped expand the visual world of the movie beyond the Tallahassee footage. Gainesville’s surrounding forests were particularly useful for scenes in which the characters interact with or become threatened by the environment outside their vehicle. The woods effectively become another character in the story.
The road is frightening because it never ends, but the forest is frightening for the opposite reason: the characters do not know what is waiting inside it.
Florida Roads and the “Endless Highway”
One of the biggest challenges of It Ends was creating a road that appears to continue forever.
The story depends on the characters repeatedly driving forward without reaching a recognizable destination.
Instead of relying entirely on one real road, the filmmakers combined real exterior photography, controlled car photography and virtual-production techniques to create the illusion of an impossible highway. The result is a setting that looks realistic enough to feel familiar but becomes increasingly unnatural as the story progresses.
The production deliberately avoided making the road too recognizable because the characters are supposed to feel as though they have entered a place disconnected from ordinary geography.
Why Was Florida Chosen for Filming?
The choice of Florida was largely practical.
Alexander Ullom has explained that the production had access to resources and equipment there, including support connected to Florida State University. The filmmaker also grew up in Florida, giving him a personal connection to the landscape.
For an independent horror film made with limited resources, Florida offered a combination of available equipment, locations and people who could help the production. Although Ullom originally imagined something closer to the enormous forests of the Pacific Northwest, the Florida woods provided their own distinctive atmosphere.
That may have benefited the movie. The dense vegetation and isolated roads give It Ends an environment that feels simultaneously ordinary and hostile.
When Was It Ends Filmed?
The movie has an unusually long production history.
The first version was filmed around 2022, followed by additional shooting and major reshoots in the years that followed. Reports indicate production occurred during multiple periods, including October 2022, June 2023 and May 2024, with each production period lasting roughly several weeks.
Ullom and his team substantially reworked the movie between these shoots. In fact, only a small number of scenes from the earliest version reportedly survived into the final cut. The repeated filming process helped transform what began as a low-budget project connected to Ullom’s Florida State University years into the finished feature that eventually premiered at SXSW and received a NEON theatrical release.
What Happened After Filming?
After the production and reshoots were completed, It Ends entered its post-production phase.
Alexander Ullom handled the editing himself, while the filmmakers continued developing the visual effects and overall presentation of the movie. The project eventually reached the 2025 SXSW Film Festival, where it premiered on March 7, 2025.
The movie then continued through the festival and distribution process. It was briefly released through the Letterboxd Video Store in December 2025, before NEON acquired worldwide distribution rights and prepared the film for its 2026 theatrical release.
So, rather than moving to another physical filming location after production, the project effectively moved from Florida filming → reshoots → post-production → festival premiere → distribution → theatrical release.
Why the Exact Locations Are Difficult to Find
There is an interesting reason why fans may struggle to locate every road and forest seen in It Ends.
The filmmakers have intentionally kept some location details private. A recent interview with Ullom specifically discussed the desire to keep the setting anonymous, and reports indicate that some parks involved in production asked the filmmakers not to identify them publicly.
That makes sense considering the movie’s concept. The story is supposed to feel as though the characters have entered an anonymous road somewhere beyond normal reality. Giving audiences a precise GPS-style map of every road would arguably undermine some of that mystery.
It also protects the locations from unwanted visitors and disturbances. It Ends may look as though it was filmed almost entirely on an endless, mysterious highway, but the production was actually a clever combination of Florida wilderness, real roads and virtual production.
Tallahassee, Florida, served as the primary production hub, while Florida State University’s virtual-production facilities were used for many of the Jeep’s interior scenes. Additional exterior filming took place around Gainesville and other wooded areas of North Florida.
The production’s repeated shoots between 2022 and 2024 allowed Alexander Ullom to reshape the movie before its 2025 SXSW premiere and eventual 2026 NEON theatrical release. What makes the filming story particularly impressive is how much the filmmakers accomplished with limited resources. A real Jeep, Florida forests, a virtual-production stage and a small cast were transformed into a surreal world where four friends can drive forever without reaching the end.
And that is perhaps the perfect filmmaking trick for a movie called It Ends: the real-world locations may be in Florida, but once the characters enter that road, geography stops behaving normally.
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