Not often do I walk out of a movie with more questions than I entered with. However if that was intended then it worked on me with Backrooms. Kane Parsons, the Director of the film and Creator of the Backrooms I.P., created a movie that wouldn’t be my usual film of choice, but may be something I need to rewatch soon.
Backrooms, is one of two hugely hyped and successful horror movies to be released not only this year, but in the same month alongside the hugely popular Obsession. Both ushered in a new wave of creatives in the Horror genre, with Parsons and Obsession director Curry Barker being influential people in the emergence of digital creative media.
Backrooms was originally a YouTube ‘Analog Horror’ series created by Kane first released in 2022. It became insanely popular amassing 12.5 Million views across 54 videos as of today. Even as someone that has never searched out one on YouTube, even I was aware of the idea of the Backrooms. The idea of liminal spaces was popularised off of the back of Parson’s series and a Backrooms movie was inevitable with the popularity of Horror and the need for new and fresh ideas for Horror movies.
I am certainly not a huge fan of the genre, I watch the occasional horror film but the appeal of a scare, being on the edge of my seat and the verge of a heart-attack for 120 minutes isn’t there. However when there is a concept as intriguing as the Backrooms I had to see what the hype was about.
While I could give you all the plot points, I think trying to use words to explain it won’t do justice to how odd and other-worldly it feels. If someone convinced me I dreamt the whole film I would probably believe them, because in certain scenes what happens cannot be explained without it sounding like I’m tripping on some sort of hallucinogenic substance.
Seriously you cannot tell me what I am about to say sounds normal.
At one point, the main character, Clark, grabs part of a person’s stomach (which using the word person doesn’t do justice to what the entity looks like) to ‘eat’. Which is made of a spongy foam-like material. Before Clark is picked up by an alternate Pirate-like version of himself that then bites into his neck. And yet that description doesn’t even get close to describing the full picture of the oddness of just that one scene.
Yet myself and critics alike have rated this movie quite highly with an 87% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and returning $400 million USD at the box office from a $10 million budget. This is undoubtedly a commercial and cultural success. In an age of online media becoming more mainstream, this is a positive step for creativity and young creatives.
Yet without extensive knowledge of backrooms lore, entities and everything to do with the series, major plot points seem like the backrooms itself, confusing and hard to make sense of. This may be rectified with a follow up movie, or maybe the point is to confuse, to make you rewatch, to watch the YouTube series and to theorise.
Regardless, I left wondering what the ending meant, what happened to the other ‘lost’ characters, whether this is the end of a story or just a beginning? Which by no means do I think is a bad thing, it just circumvents the norms of modern film.
I think it is incredibly hard to review this overly critically. It is a very well made film for sure. When it comes to composition, pacing, characterisation, relationships and themes I think it is brilliant. The idea of Clark having to fight with his loneliness and isolation, the idea and want for a different reality, and ultimately his want for comfort and acceptance being his downfall is certainly a very eye opening underlying idea. On a whole for this movie though, I think it certainly could leave people wanting more, I wouldn’t disagree either, however months later on reflection I feel as though that slight feeling of an unfinished story is what makes it so good and I look forward to hopefully more exploration of the Backrooms in the future.
Final Verdict – 8.2/10
bella 
Hayden Price 
Finn Wilson