What’s more exciting than watching dinosaurs try to eat people alive on the big screen?

See dinosaurs trying to eat people alive on the big screen in 4DX, as revealed in a special preview of “The End of Oak Street” on Saturday night in Los Angeles.

In the sci-fi film from director David Robert Mitchell and producer JJ Abrams (working under his Bad Robot banner), married couple Denise (Anne Hathaway) and Greg (Ewan McGregor) must fight to save their family once a cosmic event devastates Oak Street, moving their home from their familiar neighborhood.

A crowd of journalists and influencers watched 14 minutes of new footage, presented in 4DK: Denise and Greg leave their house in a desperate search for their dog, Starbuck (an affectionate nod to “Battlestar Galactica”), leaving behind their two children, played by “My Old Ass” hit Maisy Stella and “Sweet Tooth” star Christian Convery. But a baseball bat and a shotgun as weapons can only do so much as Denise and Greg split up, travel through their vast suburban neighborhood, narrowly avoid the death of a speeding dinosaur (as shown in the original trailer), and attempt to escape in their family’s car, only to discover that Oak Street has not only been mysteriously relocated, but they’ve also been thrown straight into the world of wandering dinosaurs, in all different sizes and terrifying types.

It’s safe to say it’s not easy to escape Oak Street.

The audience laughed nervously as their seats rocked and rolled during the tense chase scene, and each time the dinosaur attacked, a stream of water shot out from behind each audience member’s seat. Mitchell walked into the theater right after the clip ended and was delighted by the immersive effects. “Especially seeing how the seats move when driving!” he commented, laughing too.

Stopping by during a break from production on the highly anticipated “They Follow,” Mitchell told the crowd of journalists and influencers how he envisioned introducing dinosaurs into suburban life: “The idea of ​​a normal neighborhood was such a fantastic thing. I thought the fusion of those two things would be interesting and ground the show.”

Beyond promoting itself as an end-of-summer blockbuster, Mitchell and Abrams emphasized that “The End of Oak Street” is anchored in the central family dynamic. “The brilliant thing about what you wrote is that each of the characters has a secret, essentially. Each of the characters has something that they’re struggling with, but they’re a family that you really connect with, that you root for and that you believe in,” Abrams said. “It’s not a sadistic movie. It has a big heart at its core.”

Mitchell explained that he needed a cast “that brought a certain level of acting and naturalism to the family so that we could really feel drawn in.” He said: “They are us. It’s the idea of ​​being able to see ourselves. They are a traditional family.”

For example, Hathaway’s Denise was written as a loving mother with her own ambitions. “There’s this conflict of ‘Where am I in my life and how do I connect with the people I care about?'” she said, adding, “Each of the kids has their own problems. They all come into conflict, and those problems increase when they’re in this incredibly dangerous situation.”

Mitchell went on to explain how the perspective shifts between Hathaway and McGregor’s characters as they discover the horrors sweeping through their neighborhood, including a moment when an elderly neighbor is found dead in his apartment near a trail of blood. “It’s really about the subjective and the objective, finding ways to express a moment, visually, in an interesting way,” he said.

Michael Giacchino, author of the music for the three “Jurassic World” films and the video game “The Lost World,” provides a tense and eerie atmosphere through the music heard in the footage. “He identifies, like any great composer, the heartbeat of the scene, something you may have been aware of,” Abrams said. “Dig something, emphasize something, and suddenly everything rises because of it.”

Abrams compared “The End of Oak Street” to a great episode of “The Twilight Zone.”

“On the one hand, you know what you’re going to get, but you don’t actually know what you’re going to get,” he explained. “The story is so specific and unique to these characters and very emotional. When I go to the movies, my dream is to just be taken and experience a lot of emotions and things, and have a really complete meal. It’s rare to do that in a movie that’s a genre movie.”

“The End of Oak Street” will hit theaters on August 14 from Warner Bros. Pictures. In addition to screening in select 4DX theaters nationwide, the Warner Bros. film will screen in Imax.