Outer Limits / Inner Liminals: BACKROOMS defies structure…
It’s 1990 and Clark is a struggling manager of an even more struggling furniture store. He’s lost his marriage, his home and his business doesn’t look long for this world. He’s in therapy, trying to discover why things went wrong and whose fault that might be.
His therapist, Dr. Mary Kline, is in something of a rut herself. Her practise has seen better days and her self-help books are not flying off the shelves. But when Clark tells her that his efforts to find out what’s drawing so much power in his store have led him to a weird world on the other side of an apparently normal wall, she is – of course – skeptical.
So is Clark – given his sense of desperation, he’s not entirely convinced of his own sanity. If Narnia was entered through a wardrobe, here Clark’s portal takes him to a world full of wardrobes… and chairs… and lamps… and assorted furniture and apparently random detritus. However, he’s found he is able to both map some of the rooms beyond that wall and bring things back through it.
But what else lies in the Backrooms and can Mary help him discover the truth?
*some spoilers*
Films like The Blair Witch Project made such an impact not because they were the best (or, indeed, the scariest) movies ever made, but because they flew in the face of the trends of the moment and unnerved the audience by going back to primal fears rather than mere slasherfest outings. Predictably they then created their own trend of ever-diminishing POV sequels or inferior ‘homages’. Films like Backrooms have a similar effect, brought in by younger talent that eschew set-piece extravaganzas for tone.
Backrooms – again, quite unlike anything else in the current mainstream, is a triumph of mood, a collision between Alice’s Wonderland and Dali’s paintings as envisioned by David Lynch – visually a disorientating tour de force of askew perspective and desperation that recalls those corners of our psyche that produce the most resonant nightmares, where the rules don’t apply and every step somehow feels wrong. But it’s also often incoherent and the sort of production that will likely make you feel you’ve experienced something interestingly different, but not something that necessarily feels actually enjoyable, complete nor wholly satisfied. Lazy productions and opportunistic stories sometimes use that ambiguity to stroke their chins and claim it’s all part of the process (rather than admit they didn’t know how to write a third act) and though Backrooms is better than that because its entire premise is about being ambiguous, you’ll likely feel that the ending (such as it is) doesn’t truly work – a case of trying to have its cake, eat it and smash it against a wall at the same time.
Backrooms is also one of the recent raft of off-kilter horror outings that emerged as feature-length endeavours evolving from smaller projects and there are times when it shows. Like Slenderman it is born out of an online phenomenon of the obscure and the fear of something weird and dangerous and unlikely also being ever-so-slightly possible. After a picture of a yellow-tinted empty space (apparently a deserted HobbyTown franchise in Wisconsin) appeared on the online community platform 4chan in 2002, people started posting their own obscure liminal space images and a twisted sometimes contradictory mythology started springing up behind them as a way to link them together. In January 2022, Kane Parsons (aka Kane Pixels) created a video for his YouTube channel entitled The Backrooms (Found Footage) incorporating more overtly sinister elements and inhabitants of the unseen worlds beyond the walls and that has since become the central pillar of the loose mythology
In turning that online element into a feature film (and attracting some major award-winning talent to take part) Parsons is being heralded as one of the industry bright new talents to watch. So, it’s important and impressive to note that this impactful film (on course to be one of the most proportionally successful movies of 2026) comes from someone who is still only 20 years old.
Does Parsons’ effort to expand his central concept further, work? That’s an objective question with very subjective answers. There’s a solid argument that the idea probably worked far better in smaller chunks where you don’t have to have any real connective tissue – in this case, quite the opposite, your brain is challenged to come up with solutions. But there’s no denying that the feature version does pull you in in its own slow and insidious way rather than being a purely corner-of-the-eye creepypastapalooza.
The talented Chiwetel Ejiofor (whose diverse work includes The Life of Chuck, 12 Years a Slave, Kinky Boots, Serenity and Dirty Pretty Things) is the furniture-store manager whose world-view is challenged by finding the entrance to the backrooms in the store’s basement and he imbues Clark with the right balance of arrogance and despair. Norwegian actress Renate Reinsve (The Worst Person in the World, Sentimental Value) is equally good, playing Psychiatrist Mary with both a sense of professional reserve and detachment with the feeling that she herself has unresolved issues to face. Though we glimpse other people in their orbit (including Clark’s reluctant assistants Kat played by Lukita Maxwell and her boyfriend, Bobby played by Finn Bennett) it’s the often underrated Mark Duplass (Creep, The League, Tammy) whom we see scattered in moments throughout the film who becomes possibly important towards the end.
After watching Backrooms, I’m more impressed with Parsons being able to channel his arthouse vision into a surprise multiplex hit than I am in all elements of the final film as a collective whole… though the sound and lighting particularly play a huge part and deserve credit. However, it’s a marmite movie that has the principle, primal power generated by not knowing what’s coming next… and really not a film I then wish to see again. Nor will it be satisfying in many ways for those who want something a bit cleaner.
Yet it’s definitely proof that there’s more out there than conventional jump-scares and it’s one hell of a calling card…
8/10
Backrooms is on general release from A24 Films…