Some movies are designed to leave you feeling interrupted, intentionally cutting to credits before providing the resolution you've been craving for the last two hours. Others, especially when it comes to sci-fi, fantasy, and horror, drive their narratives and mythologies toward a specific thematic landing zone, punching it through the screen to in the final moments. "I Saw the TV Glow" is somewhere in the middle — a millennial-retro, aesthetically driven horror movie that blends heartfelt genre homage with heart-wrenching gender allegory.

If you've seen the film, you may have walked out of the theater at the end, or out of your living room, feeling like the air had been sucked straight out of you. Suffocation is a major idea throughout "I Saw the TV Glow," and it underlines the resounding horror of the ending. At the same time, the film's final moments aren't all terror. There's catharsis as well, and...