Backrooms is a horror movie for the internet age, taking a viral web series of a vague creepy-pasta and turning it into an equally vague feature film. An impossible office-like space that goes on forever is the crux of the Backrooms. Less outright scary and more uncanny valley, it’s unsettling and foreboding but don’t expect any outright horrors here.
Fans of the short films will definitely appreciate some of the nods and the overall vagueness of the film, but newcomers (like myself) may find it a little underbaked. I’m fine to not receive answers, and definitely expected few of them, but I don’t know if there was enough substance to turn me into a Backrooms fan. After seeing the trailers I got an As Above, So Below (2014) vibe and was expecting more of an exploration expedition, which we do get some of – we even have some camcorder shaky cam sequences throughout the film.
“Fans of the short films will definitely appreciate some of the nods […] but newcomers (like myself) may find it a little underbaked”
We follow a furniture store manager named Clarke (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who, after discovering some electrical anomalies in his store, notices a pulsing light in a store wall and soon discovers he can walk right on through. Soon he’ll drag young employees and even his therapist through, as we try to figure out just what the backrooms might be.
I will say, I did love the 90s aesthetic and furniture store vibe. If I was going to be a liminal space, I’d definitely go full carpet and patterned wallpaper.
Kane Parson’s Backrooms is in theatres now! Let us know what you thought of this new unsettling nightmare (and what you would do if you found yourself stuck in this never-ending labyrinth of office furniture) over in the Nightmare on Film Street Discord. Join ussss….
Hot at the Shop:
