When you look at the premise of The End of Oak Street, it’s not hard to see several TV series and movies that director David Robert Mitchell (It Follows) draws inspiration from when it comes to terror in the suburban home, such as Gremlins and Poltergeist. Like these movies, Oak Street follows the Platts — played by Ewan McGregor (Greg) and Anne Hathaway (Denise) — a family whose lives are turned upside down when they wake up one day to find their once-quaint neighborhood now besieged by gigantic dinosaurs. (Yes, the parallels to the Jurassic Park franchise are also very obvious.)

However, some fans are convinced that there’s even more to Oak Street than meets the eye — namely, the ongoing question of whether Oak Street (originally titled Flowervale Street) has something to do with Matt Reeves’s 2008 sci-fi horror film, Cloverfield.

The reason for such a debate is largely due to J.J. Abrams, who served as Oak Street’s producer and has a penchant for picking up movies through his production company, Bad Robot, to turn them into Cloverfield spin-offs. Speaking of…

Is The End of Oak Street a Cloverfield spin-off?

Abrams may be well-known now for his contribution to big-name franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars, but he, alongside Drew Goddard (best known for creating the Netflix series Daredevil), is a key figure in creating and shaping the Cloverfield franchise.

The original film, presented in a found footage format, follows six survivors of a brutal monster attack in New York. The film was so well received by critics and audiences alike that Abrams and Goddard went on to purchase two other original scripts — The Cellar and God Particle — that were initially not connected to Cloverfield, and then develop them into spin-offs: 10 Cloverfield Lane and The Cloverfield Paradox.

While 10 Cloverfield Lane focuses on a hostile event that renders Earth's surface uninhabitable, The Cloverfield Paradox follows a team of astronauts who conduct a particle accelerator test that opens other realities — transporting gigantic creatures and summoning supernatural attacks that affect Earth's general population across multiple parallel universes. This twist would go on to explain the events of the previous two films within the Cloverfield franchise, and give creators plenty of opportunities to explore other disasters within these parallel worlds.

Given such a premise and with Abrams and Bad Robot involved in Oak Street, the idea that the Platts are subjected to a disaster caused by the particle accelerator test isn’t too convoluted of a theory. However, it is also one that has been shot down by Abrams.

“The only connection to our Cloverfield movies is that Ewan’s partner is Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who was the star of 10 Cloverfield Lane, who we were very lucky to get to work with and who I adore,” Abrams told The Hollywood Reporter. “So there was that, but other than that, people are just making connections that they happen to see.”

There you have it, folks: The End of Oak Street is not a Cloverfield film.

The End of Oak Street's time travel explained

Although Oak Street is not connected to Cloverfield, we’d be surprised if you didn’t leave the film with numerous questions about the role of time travel and how it plays a significant role in that twisty ending.

After a devastating storm, the Platts discover that they, along with their entire neighborhood, have been pulled through a massive portal — essentially a wormhole — that transports them back to the prehistoric era of the dinosaurs. Obviously, dinosaurs and the ‘80s do not mix, and most of the Platts' friends and neighbors end up getting chomped up by the numerous carnivorous dinosaurs hanging around.

If you expect an in-depth explanation of time travel at Oak Street, you might be disappointed. However, the time-travel elements highlight how the premise differs significantly from Cloverfield, and that alone makes the film worth experiencing on its own terms.

The End of Oak Street hits theaters on Aug. 14