Before we get into the review of this top-notch psychological thriller, let’s do a quick recent history lesson. People have been posting eerie images of a fictional place called "The Backrooms" on 4chan since the late 2010s, with the mythology being that they are impossibly large, extra-dimensional empty rooms that can only be accessed by exiting our reality. The yellowish rooms often have strange, even scary elements and spacing that perhaps take close examination to truly understand what you’re seeing in each room. Then in 2022, a teenager named Kane Parsons began uploading videos titled Backrooms onto his YouTube channel. Over the course of about three years and 24 episodes, his anthology series became wildly popular, and he was given the chance to direct a feature film version, written by Will Soodik, for A24.
The resulting Backrooms film concerns a furniture store owner and failed architect named Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who is still reeling from his divorce and seeing therapist Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve, the recent Oscar nominee for Sentimental Value) to help him sort through his anger and depression issues. Then one day, Clark discovers an unseen doorway in the basement of his store; it looks like a wall, but he’s able to walk through it and into what he eventually deduces is another dimension that seems to mirror our own but with distinct alterations—more like a funhouse mirror reflection.
Resembling empty offices with ugly cubicles, the rooms are sometimes askew in various ways; furniture doesn’t make sense or is partially sunken into the floor, ceiling or walls; hallways appear endless or maze-like; the lighting makes everything that off-putting shade of yellow that fans of the series will recognize. And while at first Clark simply finds this odd, he does eventually determine that there is something in these backrooms with him, something that will harm or kill him if given the opportunity. But even knowing that doesn’t end his curiosity, and he continues his quest to map out as much of this pocket world as he can.
He enlists the help of two employees (Finn Bennett and Lukita Maxwell) to help him explore and film what they find, and he eventually tells his therapist, who naturally is skeptical of what he’s telling her, although eventually, even she is drawn into the door when Clark disappears and misses appointments. Director Parsons is only 20 years old, but his extraordinary patience in telling this story and slowly revealing more and more of this other world is that of a much more mature and seasoned filmmaker (and no that’s not me saying he didn’t actually direct this; I have no doubt he did). As we get a better understanding of that this place is and what it reflects about those who enter it, the more fascinated I became with what I was watching and honestly gave up caring if any of these characters made it back to their world and lives. I fully understood the way this ominous space drew them in and made them never want to leave. Sure, the place is scary but it’s also new and exciting and strange, and we all crave that to varying degrees, so when it’s simply handed to us like this, we embrace it.
By the time Mark Duplass arrives late in the film (in a role I won’t spoil), I was fully hooked by this unsettling examination of how traumatic events can force us to lie to ourselves about where we are, what we’ve become, and how we can make others understand—or maybe experience—our pain by actively putting them through it as well. Backrooms is a messed-up gem of a film that brushes up against horror, but is really more about being disturbing and is a wonderful source of fuel for all of our anxieties. Enter the door, if you dare, and only if you’re interested in discovering a new and exciting style of thriller.
The film is now playing in theaters.
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