Backrooms

BACKROOMS
Director ~ Kane Parsons
Writers ~ Will Soodik, Kane Parsons
2026 ~ USA-Canada
Stars ~ Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass

I would say my fear of being trapped in another threatening dimension or time was unlocked first by ‘The Amazing Mister Blunden’ when I was a kid. And then there was Sapphire being trapped in a painting in ‘Sapphire and Steel’, or even the blue door in ‘From, beyond the Grave’ was scary. Strangely, I don’t remember ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ bothering me. The idea that you won’t get back was frightening.  Recently, there are entries like ‘Vivarium’, ‘Exit 8’ or ‘The Rose to Nevada’ and now ‘Backrooms’, all which tap into adult neurosis in alternate time-traps and dimensions. This is the kind of thing that Sapphire and Steel were dispatched to sort out.

Kane Parsons' original YouTube series ‘Backrooms’ is told through found footage, corporate videos, stills, muzak and drone, alternating between seemingly prosaic vignettes that contain clues and p.o.v. search-and-scares. It also suffers from that found footage annoyance of lack of framing or/and going to black or simply being undecipherable at key moments. By the end of the fourth episode, it is made clear that found footage isn’t the only medium the series will use. It taps into a truly nightmarish vision of endless bruise-yellow corridors that never end, that contains sudden half-seen threats that stomp and yowl after you. The sound-design is also key: crackling protective suit dialogue, drone, silence, static. Frequent bad camerawork and sound are features of the medium, often used to leapfrog budgetary restraints as much as putting you in the thick of fear, but here it is also the texture. However, there is no doubt that there is a full story coherent in the background, and the exposition, when it comes, is relayed by excellent voice actor work that makes even an extended episode about the light fixtures being normal fascinating and uncanny. Short bursts of clues and mystery that you can jigsaw together, ‘Backrooms’ is made by and for the YouTube generation, spawned from 4Chan, Creepypasta and social media threads and fan speculations. Creative types no longer need wait for the frustrating and negligible whims of studios.

Parsons comes across as an extremely articulate and non-posturing twenty-year-old who is totally attuned to and articulate on contemporary mediums and tools like YouTube and Blender. His fascination with liminal spaces is at the core of the ‘Backrooms’ concept, and essentially being trapped in them, or the half-remembered remnants of them, with added occasional malevolent entities. So, you get the science-fiction mystery and the “monster-in-a-maze” element, always half-seen. Yet in the original series there was also a victim that just wastes away to death because he can’t get out, which is surely just as frightening. What is obvious is that Parsons is totally in control of this story and that everyone else has caught up and now we have this film: a film totally in tune with the ambience of contemporary horror with A24 arthouse sensibilities, but also just with the anxieties of open world games (he namechecks ‘Half-Life’ and sandbox creation games like ‘Minecraft’).

But the film also stands on its own, even if the wider context of the series heightens it. It feels relevant because Parsons is tapping into the very zeitgeist of the modern gaming age and because he most evidently isn’t just winging it. Like the series, the film starts like a like an instalment of the series of the ‘V/H/S’ franchise, even down to the P.O.V. going crazy and not seeing what exactly is going on when things hit pitch. However, that is not all of Parsons’ tricks, for the depth and assuredness he presents and develops character here is not something the format of the original series promised. The successful short bursts that the YouTube series offers paves way for the excellent performance by Chiwetel Ejiofor as Clark. Clark is already in a liminal state – estranged from him wife, living in the furniture store that he owns – when we meet him: what is satisfying is that everything has a logical progression in that his already established temper leads him to an outburst that leads him to discovering the backrooms. Ejiofor gives a very real and brilliant portrayal of a character type that is all too recognisable: stuck in resentment for himself and others, seemingly always at battle with both, and therefore suspectable to the paradox of the Backrooms.

When things turn a little ‘Maniac’, it feels a let-down of the nuanced work Ejiofor has done: such obvious horror tropes seem unnecessary. In introducing the backrooms idea, Parson says:

“So it’s kind of like a very benign version of … purgatory or hell myth, but without any kind of damnation aspect. It’s inherently a force of nature that you can’t negotiate with, and it doesn’t pull you in because you’ve done something wrong. It does it because reality broke.”

The enigma around the backrooms ultimately remains, and indeed does not need explanation, but that it is partially a huge unregulated therapy session for Clark tells again of filmmakers being too self-aware and not letting the subconscious do the work (one can imagine the deliberate lacunae David Lynch would have left). There is platitudinous therapy speak wrapped around the whole affair, almost sinisterly. Yet that the Backrooms feed from the trauma of those that enter its endless hallways has been evident in its building mythos, but not quite so overtly stated. The looming entity derived from Clark, staggering around in disturbing in its uncanny cartoonishness is enough.

Or as Brian Tallerico writes, “While “Backrooms” finds some twisted imagery along the way, it does have a bad habit of trying to explain itself more than it should.” The performances are high calibre, the conceit is unforgettable, the plotting solidly considered, the mystery tantalising, the true scope available with further watching of the series. There is an “almost-great” feel to the end product, but the promise of ‘Backrooms’ and Kane Parsons are considerable, should you go down the rabbit hole. Certainly, if it works for you, you’ll be wanting more.