Alex Ullom is wasting little time moving beyond the stripped-back horror of It Ends. The 27-year-old filmmaker has already completed principal photography on his next movie, 4 X 4: The Event, a project that appears to trade existential isolation for something considerably louder, more violent and rooted in the uncomfortable relationship between online entertainment and spectacle.
According to Polygon, which spoke with Ullom about the project, details remain deliberately limited, but the basic premise is unusually timely. Eight contestants enter an illegal livestream in which survival depends on killing their opponents using only items they can order online. The cast includes Jaden Smith and Sophia Lillis, while Ullom has described the concept as a collision between the enormous online competitions associated with MrBeast, political upheaval and the confrontational filmmaking of French director Gaspar Noé.
That combination suggests 4 X 4: The Event is interested in more than constructing another elaborate death game. Stories built around people fighting for an audience have existed for decades, from Battle Royale to The Running Man, while the Saw franchise turned deadly challenges into a horror institution of its own. What has changed is the media environment around them. Livestreaming, creator-led competitions and algorithm-driven attention have made the boundary between entertainment and participation considerably less theoretical.
Ullom appears equally interested in changing his filmmaking style. His debut feature It Ends, which premiered at SXSW before securing a theatrical release through Neon, follows four college graduates who become trapped on an apparently endless road. Its restrained approach blends existential horror with the relaxed rhythms of a hangout movie.
4 X 4 is being positioned as its aesthetic opposite.
Ullom has pointed specifically to Noé’s Enter the Void as an influence, particularly its famously aggressive title sequence. Rather than preserving the minimalist atmosphere of his first film, the director wants the editing and presentation of 4 X 4 to create something closer to sensory overload. Noé’s 2018 film Climax, another reference surrounding the project, is similarly known for using sound, movement and increasingly chaotic imagery to create discomfort.
It is an ambitious shift for a filmmaker moving into only his second feature. A deliberately overwhelming visual style can reinforce a movie about internet excess, but it can just as easily become exhausting when the technique overwhelms the ideas underneath it. The livestream premise will also need to find something new to say in a genre already crowded with fictional competitions, survival games and satires of online fame.
Casting appears to have been considerably more involved this time around. Ullom worked with casting director Kim Winther, whose recent credits include Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, to assemble the film’s eight central participants. Ullom has also indicated that at least one performer from It Ends returns for the new project.
4 X 4: The Event does not yet have a confirmed release date, leaving its eventual distribution plans and wider cast details unresolved. It Ends reaches theaters on August 21. If that film introduces audiences to Ullom through restraint, his already-completed follow-up seems determined to find out what happens when he removes those restraints entirely.
