Backrooms is not the title of a soft porn Cinemax series from the 1990s. It is a movie based on a YouTube series phenomenon, which completely passed me by.
I still haven’t got through all the funny cat videos…
Backrooms is popular with the kids; however, it is popular enough that Hollywood gave its creator, Kane Parsons, $10 million to make a movie.
The basic premise is thus:
The Backrooms are a labyrinth of urine-colored rooms that appear to go on forever and don’t make sense in a Euclidean kind of way. People disappear into them. Monsters appear within them. Not minotaur kind of monsters — weirder than that. A mysterious organization attempts to study the Backrooms with analog 1990s equipment.
Somewhere, J.J. Abrams kicks himself and says, “Why didn’t I think of that?”
Backrooms: The Movie
Twenty-four episodes of Backrooms appear on YouTube. Whether or not the movie makes use of their content is unknown to me, so I will stick with the film only and approach it all as a naïve novice.
Kane Parsons directed. He is only 20 years old, but he used YouTube as a platform to strike out on his own. He then grew an audience there.
This approach proves interesting. As Hollywood continues to circle the drain, it might be that a group of youngsters who cut their teeth with tools made for the common man may be the ones to save movies. It could happen. To a degree, it’s similar to the 1970s when a group of youngsters named Lucas, Spielberg and others burst onto the scene and spun movies in a fresh direction.
Parsons brings a unique style to Backrooms. He does a man’s job capturing the 1990s, even though he wasn’t alive then. The CRT screens, VHS tapes, public access television commercials, décor and everything else give the impression of a bygone era.
Parsons is at his best when he navigates the Backrooms locations, however. They seem like a real, crazy, familiar-yet-alien place where each corridor might lead to a blind corner where a lunatic ending lurks.
Backrooms to the Future
Backroom is scaled back in the performers department. It has two main characters: a psychologist played by Renate Reinsve and her patient, Chiwetel Ejiofor.
Reinsve is a Norwegian actress who appeared in a film titled, I kid you not, Fjord. Outposters will recognize Ejiofor from Red Belt and The Martian.
Renate is fine in her role as a psych professional with trauma of her own. It’s a familiar type of character, and she plays the right notes to keep it from sounding out of key.
Ejiofor has the meatiest role. I reckon we will see crusaders calling his role racist because he dares to play a black dude with a drinking problem, anger issues and a failed marriage in 2026. Plus, it’s all his fault. Ejiofor deserves a salute for taking the part and nailing it. He is sympathetic, pathetic and scary at various points.
Mark Duplass also shows up briefly.
Robert Bobroczkyi appears as another gangly creature after his turn in Alien: Romulus as the Offspring. Good for him. It can’t be much fun to be 7’7 in a world where you can’t play professional basketball. Bobroczkyi hopefully has many more monsters in him.
Backrooms That Thang Up
Will Soodik wrote the screenplay. Soodik is known for Homeland, Westworld and Ash Vs. Evil Dead. That’s a solid credit list. It’s a good idea to pair a first-time feature film director with someone who knows their way around a story.
Ultimately, Backrooms is one of those films that thrives on creating curiosity and then leaves the viewer to come up with their own conclusions. Hence, the earlier reference to J.J. Abrams. This is a “mystery box” movie.
Some hints are given. For example, Duplass delivers a smidge of lore, and Ejiofor has his own theories he expounds upon. Likewise, Ejiofor’s journey provides some psychological insight into the nature of the Backrooms.
But that is it. So, it becomes a question of…is that enough?
Backrooms motivated me to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey again because both films have some similarities in the answer and structure departments. 2001 is a journey into outer space. Backrooms is a journey into inner space.
2001 is often criticized as vague, but everything the viewer needs is there.
The monolith is presented as an alien catalyst for human development and a measuring device. When humans advance sufficiently, the monolith motivates them to seek further answers. This unlocks another stage of development. Along the way, an AI computer goes cuckoo and endangers the lives of the spacemen.
2001 features a splintered narrative. First, apes. Then cut to the space age and Dr Heywood’s assignment to the monolith discovery. Then jump to Dave and Frank vs. HAL 9000 and the eventual journey into the stargate.
Backrooms has a splintered narrative. It starts with Ejiofor, and when his story gets super interesting, the movie jumps to Renate as the main character. Her journey dovetails back to Ejiofor in time, but it feels like Backrooms abandoned the more interesting story and reset the film backwards at that point. I wanted to see more of Ejiofor exploring the weird space.
Backrooms In The Saddle Again
So…there you sit when Backrooms ends, probably wanting a bit more but thinking it did a decent job with what it chose to show.
It is an H.P. Lovecraft-style story. Even the splintered narrative can be tied back to some of his techniques. Many Lovecraft stories are about the narrator following up on a trailblazer who came to a mysterious end in a weird place.
Backrooms shows the trailblazer (Ejiofor) before switching to the narrator (Renate).
Ultimately, the way Backrooms uses these elements will come out in the wash differently with each viewer.
I personally didn’t find the film unnerving, more like a funhouse attraction. I see its potential for tapping into existential dread; however, the universe is an incomprehensible empty space, and we wander its confusing corridors alone in our foibles until we come to a final corner where death lurks. The empty rooms remain once we are gone. Others pass through, oblivious to our existence. And on and on it goes until the sun dies out.
Or maybe the Backrooms are hell, an inverse take on heaven in John 14:2-3
In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me, so that you may also be where I am.
But I have no major existential fears, and hell is not on my docket. Rather, I find physical and spiritual threats in films scary. So, I watched Backrooms in the hopes of seeing a satisfying story. It doesn’t quite deliver that. On the other hand, it delivers more to talk about than The Mandalorian and Grogu as it took Disney Star Wars into the backroom for a beat down at the box office.
Backrooms deserves its compliments, even the back-handed ones like that.
