Title: Backrooms
MPA Rating: R
Director: Kane Parsons
Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rene Reinsve, Mark Duplass
Runtime: 1 hr 50 mins

What It Is: Clark (Ejiofor) is a broken manager of a furniture store struggling with alcoholism and depression following his divorce. Mary (Reinsve) is his therapist, herself a woman coping over past traumas. Clark finds a strange gap in reality, like a door, into a liminal anomaly space, the backrooms, and becomes increasingly infatuated with exploring it. When Clark goes missing, Mary takes it upon herself to find him to find herself caught up in the uncanny and dangerous habitat.

What We Think: My Instagram handle is a play on the word ‘liminal,’ I’m very infatuated with liminal spaces myself. I find them eerie, of course, but I also find great comfort in liminal spaces. Not as much of the uncanny ones like the backrooms, but I dig all nonetheless. Open roads on unchanging planes that never end, empty suburban houses at night, abandoned buildings–that’s all my jam. It’s a given: if it has any influences involving or related to liminality, I’ll probably be a fan (for example, Vivarium and Skinamarink–funnily enough, two movies that most people hate with a passion). So it’s no surprise, I liked this movie, and I liked it best when we’re actually in the backrooms. I’m actually not super privy to the lore that led to this film’s conception, but I’m familiar enough to know that it’s a strange realm that is ever-expanding, mirrors human habitats but not quite, and is full of ‘entities’ ranging from harmless to dangerous.The concept, linked to a photo taken in 2019 that inspired Internet lore, is delightful as a whole. I’ve watched plenty of shorts wherein we traverse its unfair world in a first-person POV, always with unpredictable consequences.

As Kane Parson’s debut, this is a really solid flick, which is no surprise as he’s the original creator of the web series The Backrooms. It’s stylistically perfect, immersive, and creepy, though never too jarring. While some (specifically two teenagers) remarked this was the scariest film they’d ever seen, I felt the slower pace and near-ponderous tone was comforting, if not at times, somewhat boring. I know it’s basically illegal to criticize Backrooms right now, but hell, we ball. You guys know I’m usually all for slower cinema seeing that the story is solid, and I’m not debating that this isn’t a good story. Overall, it’s a fine-enough tale about emotional pain, capitalism, and memory, but its chunky scenes felt far too drawn-out for too little going on. At a certain point, I felt myself just sitting in the theater tuning out. While perhaps this could change upon another watch, I felt this happening a few times throughout the film where a scene and exchange of dialogue would go on far too long and I’m just wishing the movie would just move on already. I suppose I wanted more backrooms themselves, as the film starts out pretty strong in its allure and analog aesthetics, but loses some steam in the therapy scenes and somewhat in the dining scene. I know many will disagree with me, but I can’t help but feel it’s also due to the passionate fanbase creating so much hype around the film as well. Which isn’t a bad thing: I definitely find myself enjoying the enormous praise for Parsons, who isn’t even old enough to have a beer, and the film itself. I think it’s a beautiful thing that people have shown so much love for this film and are being brought back to theaters because of it (also thanks to Obsession!) and to be frank, I think that this devotion is absolutely deserved. Not all gems aren’t without their flaws, but this is a surefire cult-classic, not to mention, I love all the Twin-Peaks-type creepiness and the design of the film’s big-baddie (which… I was NOT expecting that).

Our Grade: B, A fun and at times unnerving decent into an Internet-born legend, Backrooms is a fresh and methodical horror, finally bringing hard liminal-horror to the mainstream. Though it critically lags in certain important scenes and ended on a bit of an underwhelming note (again, my feelings could very possibly change on the next watch), it’s an otherwise hypnotic and beautifully crafted watch that would likely hit best when you’re alone, in the dead of night.