The J.J. Abrams-produced sci-fi thriller The End of Oak Street has finally arrived in theaters, and the final film has seemingly shut down fan theories that the movie is the latest chapter of the Cloverfield franchise. Small clues discovered by fans looking to link the two together – including that the film's central family have the same last name (Platt) as T.J. Miller’s character in 2008’s Cloverfield, that Abrams produced the movie, and that the titular street’s real-life counterpart in Santa Monica is connected to Clover Park, where Abrams’ production company Bad Robot is based — caused enormous speculation in the lead-up to The End of Oak Street's release.

That sleuthing seems to have all been in vain, however, as the movie makes no indication of being connected to Cloverfield, nor its sequels 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) or The Cloverfield Paradox (2018). Abrams himself said that the only connection is star Ewan McGregor being the real-life partner of Mary Elizabeth Winstead, the star of the second movie.Still, there’s something about Oak Street that seems to be in the spirit of the celebrated trilogy. An air of mystery, similarities in storytelling, and other aspects of the film frame it as a kind of spiritual successor. Here are all the ways we think The End of Oak Street could be a Cloverfield movie (even though it isn’t).

Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor Encounter a Portal to Another Time

The movie, set in an idyllic suburban neighborhood in 1982, follows the Platt Family, led by parents Denise (Anne Hathaway) and Greg (McGregor), who try to keep their unhappy marriage and financial woes secret from their two children. However, their everyday life is thrown into chaos when Oak Street is mysteriously transported back to a prehistoric era, with dinosaurs suddenly patrolling the streets and hunting the confused residents. The Platts must fight to survive, but also ask themselves: how on Earth did this happen?

In one scene, the eldest daughter Audrey (Maisey Stella) offers an idea as to how exactly dinos came to rule their neighborhood. A lover of science, she presents Carl Sagan’s theory of wormholes — rifts in space that could transport people and places to anywhere or any time. It seemingly happens at random, and offers an idea as to how Denise and her family can escape.

If one wanted to make a connection between this film and the Cloverfield universe, this would be the strongest link. The Cloverfield Paradox follows the crew of a space station who are experimenting with a particle accelerator which they hope will solve the Earth’s energy crisis. Far from fixing the situation, the experiment causes the paradox of the film’s title, creating tears in reality that cause creatures from alternate realities to arrive on Earth. The ending is seemingly an explanation for how the first movie's monster and second movie's aliens ended up on Earth — and were it not for Abrams’ flat-out denial of a connection, this could also possibly have explained Oak Street's transportation as well. Intriguingly, news reports in Paradox also mention whole city blocks disappearing into a rift.

‘The End of Oak Street’ and Cloverfield Both Have Ground-Level Views of Disaster

Think of the blueprint for the average disaster movie, and you’ll probably think of something with multiple viewpoints: you’ve got the specialist who warns everyone about the impending danger but isn’t listened to, The President agonizing in the Oval Office once the catastrophe arrives, perhaps a military man heading out to save the world. The End of Oak Street doesn’t utilize those multiple vantage points, sticking with the Platt family for its entire run. With no knowledge or preparation for what has just happened to them, they must learn to survive quickly, and the dinosaur attacks become all the more terrifying as we see that the four protagonists are not world-saving heroes, just everyday people.

This is something that’s at the heart of the Cloverfield franchise: following people on the ground as they struggle to run from an unknown terror that they've only just encountered. 10 Cloverfield Lane is largely set in a bunker and follows a young woman named Michelle (Winstead) who has been “saved” by a doomsday prepper (John Goodman) and forced to stay quarantined under his roof. The revelatory twist, where she escapes and discovers aliens have invaded Earth, shows that we have unwittingly been witnessing an individual’s approach to the apocalypse.

The ultimate example of this is the first film, however, as the found footage presentation means we follow a group of friends step-by-step as they escape a giant monster’s attack on New York City. We only see from the perspective of the camcorder carried by Hud (T.J. Miller) for the majority of the movie, as he moves around panicked crowds and avoids mass destruction. The Cloverfield Paradox is slightly different, as the main characters are in space. But the repeated footage of communications officer Ava Hamilton’s (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) husband shows a ground-level perspective, while the space crew themselves are somewhat helpless as they witness the destruction they have wrought.

All of these films echo the human grounding in The End of Oak Street, where fantastical events are witnessed by ordinary people, rather than the film opting for a God’s eye view of proceedings through various viewpoints. We see what the lead characters see, making their peril even more compelling.

Mysterious Movie Marketing Is a Cloverfield Trademark

For a movie with dinosaur attacks on every street corner, its marketing initially restrained itself in terms of showing the scaly antagonists. The first trailer offers little explanation of the plot, other than Hathaway’s Denise shakily explaining: “Our house, our neighborhood, our whole street has moved,” along with quickly edited shots of the family fleeing dinosaurs who, for the most part, are obscured. The first poster for the movie simply shows the titular street with ominous tracks leaving behind destruction.

More would be revealed closer to the film’s release. But this initial mystery brought to mind the marketing magic that became a trademark of the Cloverfield franchise. The first movie’s trailer arrived without a title, simply a video showing a party disturbed by the monster’s attack, and the release date of “1-18-08”. Speculation was rife as to the film’s plot, heightened by viral marketing Easter eggs placed on websites and social media platforms, building anticipation for what would be a breakout box office hit.

10 Cloverfield Lane would also leave internet clues for fans to find, while The Cloverfield Paradox ignored marketing build-up entirely. In February 2018, Netflix aired a surprise advertisement during Super Bowl LII announcing that it had acquired the rights to the film, revealing the title and that it would be available to stream straight after the game. The announcement shocked the industry, movie fans, and the cast themselves, who were only told on the day of the reveal. The End of Oak Street might not have shrouded itself in mystery the same way the Cloverfield films did, but at a time when it feels like an entire movie can be spoiled through marketing, its less-is-more approach has some similarities.

‘The End of Oak Street’ Deals with a Dreaded Unknown

While Audrey’s theory about wormholes is enough to navigate the Platts out of danger, it isn’t a definitive explanation. At the closing of the film, how and why Oak Street was transported back in time is left unexplained. The closing police report tells us that the phenomenon is being studied, but there is no monologue or conclusion that gives us all the facts. It remains a chilling mystery.

This is in keeping with the Cloverfield franchise’s enigmatic tone, giving audiences just enough information to know what is going on, but little beyond the headlines. 2008’s Cloverfield never canonically explained where the creature came from, with only fragments of information found in marketing and promotional interviews giving texture to the creature’s origins. Equally, the climactic alien invasion in 10 Cloverfield Lane has only a surface-level explanation – the aliens are here, and attacking, but the reasons are opaque.

2018’s The Cloverfield Paradox offers the unifying theory that the rifts caused by the experiment have opened portals to other worlds and times, leading to the possibility that both the monster in the first film and the alien invasion in the second were caused by this incident. This is further implied by the final shot of the movie, which features a larger but undoubtedly similar monster to that from the first film, which some have surmised is the same creature as an adult.

However, these are implications rather than solid links. Audiences only know so much about the events of those three films, just as they will leave The End of Oak Street with no ironclad explanation as to what happened to the Platts. There’s something more terrifying in that approach – after all, if you don’t know how something happened to you, it’s harder to judge if it could happen again.

Unless some cleverly-hidden detail proves us wrong, The End of Oak Street remains a standalone, thrilling adventure. With other comparisons being made to Amblin movies of the ‘80s, perhaps the biggest compliment that can be paid to David Robert Mitchell’s movie is that it feels so much like the stories that captivated us in the past.