The Backrooms takes place in 1990, or a vague approximation of what someone too young to have experienced it thinks it looks like. This is completely irrelevant to the plot or anything that happens, other than it irritated me. I’m not familiar with the source material for The Backrooms, other than it’s a menacing liminal space that traps people.  Because the original material was limited in the scope of its narrative, the filmmakers had to craft new characters to wrap their plot and themes around. 

• Directed by: Kane Parsons
• Written by: Will Soodik. Kane Parsons
• Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor. Renate Reinsve. Mark Duplass

The Characters and Themes

First there’s Clark, the drunk, failed architect dealing with his divorce and loss of the life he thought he had. On the other hand, we have Mary, the therapist who’s trapped in the trauma surrounding her history with her mother. 

Backrooms is a fantastic metaphor for the endless loops we twist ourselves in psychologically, a prison of nothing but distorted memories and a bad reflection of reality. Delving deeper into them carelessly is at best reckless, and most likely dangerous. 

On paper, I’m sure this all seemed very chilling and profound. And if I’m being honest, there is a lot I can appreciate about  Backrooms. The audio is fantastic, and I think it’s one of the best sounding movies I’ve watched this year. There are so many subtle distortions in the sounds, it fully conveys the feeling of wrongness that it should.  Likewise, there’s also the visual progression of Clark’s architectural drawings devolving from precise and disciplined to chaotic as he gets deeper into the backrooms.

Where it Goes Wrong

The problem with Backrooms is that the normal plot devices that would need to exist to propel the story forward just don’t work here. Mary is Clark’s therapist. Of course, the first thing he does is tell her about the backrooms, and of course, she doesn’t believe him. So, he gets his employees to explore the backrooms with a video camera.

This would seem like an obviously terrible idea, especially as they go deeper into the strange environment.  The unfortunate thing about Backrooms at this point is everything you think is going to happen, pretty much happens. 

The Rooms Where It Happens

As far as themes go, it’s not a bad way to portray what happens when you become so lost in your own obsessions and trauma that you pull other people down with you. As a cohesive piece of fiction, this could have been so much more. 

There are two movies here. One that wants to be a creepy story about liminal spaces. The other is a complex drama about trauma. They don’t fit together well, and the metaphor can’t sustain itself when the two elements combine. 

When the plot reaches the “Things Happen” stage, logic, what little of it there was, is left behind and whatever needs to move the action forward is what happens instead. This is especially true when it comes time for a third-act info dump.

Yes, Backrooms looks and sounds great. And since it’s a trip through an illogical, metaphysical space, it doesn’t need to entirely make sense. But the characters who exist outside this space need to behave logically and with consistency. 

Did I Like This Movie?

Ghoul’s note: I actually spent a day thinking about The Backrooms and what the filmmakers were trying to say about destructive thought patterns. It’s entirely possible for a movie to present a variety of perspectives without landing on which one is “right”.  Backrooms certainly doesn’t give any solutions or clear paths through trauma. There’s nothing clear cut about the theme, and the more I try to deconstruct the potential imagery, it doesn’t work.  

Now, this could be due to my lack of familiarity with the source material. But I think the introduction of the mysterious company that discovered the backrooms actually hurts the overall narrative. It’s unnecessary and stops Mary’s arc of self-rescue dead in its tracks. 

The ending scene, I think, makes an interesting statement, one that could be worth exploring in further media, although I’m still not convinced that a movie is the right format. At the end of two days, I liked Backrooms. It’s interesting and ambitious, which is something I want to reward. 

Final Thoughts

The Backrooms is not a typical horror movie. It’s all about sound and ambiance. There are a few jump scares, but I wouldn’t call it scary. It’s unsettling and odd, but nothing too bad. If you like your horror to be more obvious, this will seem slow and probably not be for you.  Fans of thoughtful, deliberate horror will probably enjoy it. 

Backrooms is available for rent on streaming.