It’s strange how big a difference a shift in perspective can make. For over a decade, the Jurassic World franchise has repeatedly told its characters—and filmgoing audiences—that dinosaurs are passé. Yawn. Honk-shoo. That’s why they needed to DNA splice new, scarier thunder lizards or center a swarm of genetically modified locusts. Now, writer-director David Robert Mitchell’s The End of Oak Street arrives with a corrective. Actually, dinosaurs are scary as hell.

The prehistoric beasts come to 80s suburbia—or rather, 80s suburbia comes to the beasts—via barely sketched-out wormhole science. For the more hard-sci-fi-inclined, this explanation may rankle. For most, though, it is a good enough justification. It has an air of theoretical possibility that quickly gets out of the way so the movie can focus on what it really wants to say about family, the suburbs, and frightening carnivores.

The audience experiences things most through the eyes of the Platt family. Mom Denise (Anne Hathaway) is well accustomed to playing the happy homemaker. Still, the novel she works on nightly in the basement suggests a widening chasm between her private self and family persona. Dad Greg (Ewan McGregor) is a goofball who’s hiding something, if not multiple somethings, from the rest of the family.

While the parents clash, the children, Audrey (Maisy Stella) and Brian (Christian Convery), observe. For Audrey, the uncertainty of the family structure has her looking to the stars. She dreams of studying astronomy and following in the footsteps of Carl Sagan. Brian, on the other hand, is acting out. He roams the neighborhood with his bike-riding friends, smoking and, most recently, accidentally breaking another child’s arm trying to be funny.

Like most crises, Oak Street’s sudden relocation to a long-ago era brings the cracks in the family into relief. It also serves as a reminder of what’s important. That balance is crucial to the film’s tone. By giving Denise’s anger and Greg’s people-pleasing rejection of reality space, Mitchell’s script avoids overbearing saccharine. And, on the other side of the scale, demonstrating the family’s genuine care for one another keeps things from becoming too crushingly bitter or bleak.

Mitchell also balances fear and humor throughout. The End of Oak Street doesn’t shy away from the damage dinosaurs can do, pushing the violence as far as the PG-13 rating will allow. No one is safe, not kindly older mentors, kids, or beloved family cats. And, to the filmmakers’ credit, it isn’t just about the gore.

One scene finds the Platts’ annoying neighbor Mel (P.J. Byrne) taking aim at the dinos from his roof. What gives the scene its grisly effectiveness isn’t just what the audience sees, but how the camera moves between what Mel is doing and how the Platts react. Sound is also key, as his increasingly desperate tones and the animal screeches prove more haunting than most scenes of the dinosaurs gobbling up people left and right.

Still, there are plenty of laughs and not just of the “I need to laugh because the tension is too much” variety, though there is plenty of that, too. A few chuckles from my critics and influencers seemed to run counter to Mitchell’s intent, but for the most part, they were earned where intended. By not shying away from opportunities for dark humor and situational absurdity, The End of Oak Street feels a bit more well-rounded and genuine than your typical creature feature.

Not everything in the film works, but most of what doesn’t are the elements the film doesn’t explore deeply enough. The movie clearly has its opinions about suburban living and how real a “community” springs from those single-family homes, but it doesn’t develop the viewpoint beyond pointing it out. The ending is far too neat, yet it still suggests a pretty horrifying compromise that the film never even pays lip service. However, the worst moment, one I can’t describe lest I spoil, is the sort of last-second hero moment that even 80s family movie directors would’ve rejected for being simply too much cheese.

These drawbacks aside—and save for the last one, they barely bothered this writer—The End of Oak Street is an excellent late summer treat. It feels honest, has a strong sense of pacing, and offers a wonderful mix of awe-inspiring, terror-inducing, and stomach-churning visuals. And, most importantly, it reminded us that dinosaurs are plenty petrifying, no matter what those people at the theme parks tell us.

The End of Oak Street runs screaming into theatres on August 14.

The End of Oak Street Trailer: