Backrooms review
Backrooms stays true to its roots…and opens up a surprising real-world experiment.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Backrooms
Directed by Kane Parsons
Written by Will Soodik
Starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, Lukita Maxwell, Avan Jogia, Robert Bobroczky and Krista Kosonen
Backrooms Review
I found the hype surrounding the release of Backrooms to be pretty interesting. It’s hardly the first movie to explore the idea of liminal spaces. It is, I suppose, the first one to arrive with the backing of a trusted studio like A24, however. Names like Osgood Perkins and James Wan and Shawn Levy are listed among the hefty number of producers as well. It’s directed by 20 year old Kane Parsons based on the YouTube series of his own creation. We’ve seen YouTubers have success in the film space before…most notably 2022’s Talk to Me. But the way that buzz about Backrooms continued to grow was still a bit of an oddity.
Backrooms looks like the kind of movie you’d find pop up via Video on Demand…but only if you knew to look for it in the first place. That’s not a knock…plenty of quality horror films are direct to VOD at this point. Truly independent horror is where you’re likely to find the movies willing to take the biggest risks and the biggest swings. The kinds of stories that you enjoy but recognize that the casual movie goer wouldn’t find satisfying. Recent release Buffet Infinity comes to mind. With that casual movie goer seemingly sold on heading to the theater to watch Backrooms…it presents a couple of big questions. First…would Backrooms remain committed to its ultra-independent roots despite a recognizable cast and real financial backing? Second, and most interestingly, would casual audiences go for it if it did?
We can’t know the answer to the second question until more people have the opportunity to watch it. The answer to the first question is, happily, yes. Backrooms may have a glossier look and a few actors that Parsons wouldn’t have been able to get if he produced the movie through a Kickstarter campaign…but it is unapologetically indie horror. I wondered more than a few times how people who haven’t waded into the deep end of low-budget indie horror would feel about what was happening in Backrooms. I didn’t have to think about it as much when I watched Buffet Infinity…because no one was anticipating heading to the theater to watch it. But I’m excited that we’re going to get to find out. I’m even more excited at the prospect of at least some percentage of people who check Backrooms out choosing to pursue the gluttony of worthwhile horror made in true independent spaces.
As for Backrooms…one of its greatest strengths comes from refusing to turn its back on those true indie origins. High concepts and big swings told through the animus of do it yourself, low-budget constraints. That long list of producers and that A24 money may have eased the difficulties created by the latter…but Parsons retains the feel and purpose of the former.
Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) owns a struggling furniture store. He has a drinking problem…and since his wife through him out of the house…sleeps in the store at night. That’s why he’s able to notice the strange electrical events that occur after hours. Frustration with the electricity eventually leads him to discover a doorway that shouldn’t exist…into what appears to be a never ending series of rooms.
One of the things the marketing of Backrooms left me wondering is why an actor of Ejiofor’s caliber was interested in the project. By the time Backrooms reaches its conclusion…it’s clear that his talents were of great service to the film. We get to see many sides of Clark…most of which we can’t really get into without spoiling where those backrooms inevitably lead. Renate Reinsve plays Clark’s therapist…carrying her own trauma along with her. When Clark cuts off their appointments after trying to explain what he’d found to her…she takes it upon herself to track him down. Even if it means walking through that impossible doorway herself.
Backrooms spends some time establishing who Clark has become…and, perhaps, who he wants to be. When he walks through the doorway…we get to find out who he really is. We will find out a lot more about the rooms than you’d expect too. Answering questions like that is always a risk. It’s why David Lynch never wanted to do it. Parsons isn’t afraid to directly address the why of something even if the how is never likely to be understood. When Backrooms is over we feel like we get how things are working on the other side. That these “answers” are satisfying is a real credit to the film.
But I wonder how satisfying the overall package will be to that casual movie goer expected to deliver A24 one of its best opening weekends ever. If Parsons hasn’t bent much to the will of mass expectations…he’s left his film open to being a divisive one. A lot of people may walk away from Backrooms laughing about what they just saw…or didn’t see. There’s enough commitment to Clark’s character arc to give people a full experience. But will it be enough to make its unexplainable elements and open-ended conclusion palatable for those who require their stories to follow expected patterns? I guess we’ll find out. Hopefully, the ones that it works for choose to walk through the doorway of ultra-indie horror afterwards.
Scare Value
I didn’t spend a lot of time on the plot of Backrooms because it’s a journey that should be taken as blindly as possible. You know what you need to know heading into it. Ejiofor is terrific. The movie looks great. There is some great horror imagery though maybe not as much as you’d expect. The answers the movie provides are surprisingly satisfying. What these rooms may inevitably be, however, is a litmus test for how much appetite casual audiences have for something usually reserved for the hardcore fans willing to engage with something more experimental.
4/5
Backrooms Link
Buy tickets on Fandango
