Backrooms

On the heels of Curry Barker’s Obsession, Kane Parsons is the latest horror filmmaker to make the leap from YouTube to the big screen with Backrooms. Based on Parsons’s viral 2022 web series, itself inspired by a popular creepypasta, the film stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as Clark, a down-on-his-luck furniture store manager who stumbles upon an impossible labyrinth of endless hallways behind a wall in his store’s basement. When Clark mysteriously disappears, his therapist, Mary (Renate Reinsve), decides to search for him. What follows is a haunting liminal horror that touches on themes of memory and trauma to eerie effect.

The titular backrooms are an uncanny amalgamation of rooms and architecture that operate on their own logic. Random objects are partly sunk into the floor, staircases lead nowhere, and corridors continue forever in physics-defying directions. Clark describes the rooms as being like “someone who’s never seen a dog trying to draw a dog”. There’s always something deeply wrong with what’s on screen, and this is where Parsons generates a large chunk of the terror. This sense of unease is heightened by the sickly yellow décor and nauseating buzzing of fluorescent lights overhead. The occasional sounds of footsteps and monstrous cries echoing in the distance likewise create an impending sense of danger that quietly ramps up throughout the film.

Ejiofor and Reinsve are exquisite here. Their performances are grounded and visceral, with Ejiofor’s descent into obsession and madness leading to the movie’s most intense scenes. Clark and Mary are also carrying their own trauma, which manifests in peculiar ways, raising further questions about what exactly this place could be.

Structurally, the feature is split into two distinct parts. The first follows Clark’s initial discovery and exploration of the rooms, while the second centres around Mary’s search for him. Parsons does a stellar job of building upon the atmosphere and tension during each section. However, an abrupt ending cuts the latter part short. Although the final moments are thematically resonant, the feature feels like it’s missing its third act.

Backrooms is liminal horror at its finest. Its Lynchian setting is disturbing in all the right ways, and it never loses its uneasy atmosphere. While Parsons uses this premise to explore existential ideas in extraordinary fashion, an anticlimactic conclusion ends events on an underwhelming note. Despite this unfortunate misstep, Parsons establishes himself as a remarkable new talent.