Review: BACKROOMS is a Creepy Yet Daunting Liminal Abattoir

The Backrooms are, by viral creepypasta standards, a legendary phenomenon. From 4chan to subreddits to YouTube, photos of piss-yellow rooms sucked people into a liminal horror uprising. But in 2022, YouTuber Kane Parsons—aka KanePixels—became the ringleader of the Backrooms movement. With a few short films created in Blender and Adobe After Effects, Parsons redefined what nightmares the Backrooms might harbor, and inspired a new generation of pastabilities. 

That’s the pedigree he brings to A24’s Backrooms adaptation, rightfully directed by Parsons.

The translation from forum-tracked mythology and YouTube shorts to theaters was an inevitability, but A24 was right to put Parsons in charge. At only 16 years old, Parsons had tens of millions of fans addicted to bite-sized clips of found footage ambiguity depicting random explorers lost to the Backrooms, as well as a corporation, Async, dedicated to Backrooms research. But this isn’t YouTube, and Hollywood isn’t a children’s playground. Parsons had plenty to prove with Backrooms, which turned out to be an impressive accomplishment for any teenager’s feature debut. 

Impressive, but not without issues that clog the overall flow of empty, threatening spaces and psychological torment.

Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as Clark, the alcoholic, divorced owner of Cap’n Clark’s Ottoman Empire, a struggling furniture store. His therapist, Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve), urges him to take accountability for his life, but Clark would rather wallow in self-pity, alone. Then, one night, he stumbles upon a false wall in his store’s basement floor that leads to an expansive and seemingly infinite collection of rooms not on anyone’s blueprints. Clark starts mapping the new area, finding obscurities everywhere, but before long, realizes that these “backrooms” aren’t an escape from his problems—and they’re more dangerous than they let on.

Parsons is locked in on his Backrooms sequences. The film opens with a slight homage to his very first video, camera tracking fuzz and all. Then, as Clark delves deeper into his investigation, he drags in employee Kat (Lukita Maxwell) and her boyfriend Bobby (Finn Bennett), who have the same VHS-quality recorder. They travel through a liminal abattoir of broken memories; rooms filled with a warped Christmas morning, sewer-dank pool areas, or entire abandoned neighborhoods. Production hands built over 30,000 square feet of labyrinthian Backrooms, and the set feels monstrous. Parsons delivers when it comes to the in-your-face unease that awaits in Backrooms adventures, but on a bigger scale, thanks to an actual budget.

However, the film has a problem. Writer Will Soodik collaborates with Parsons on a tale that isn’t contained to the backrooms. Clark and Dr. Kline establish an adversarial relationship as patient and doctor, exposing the horrible mindset of a pathetic man who’d rather toil in grief than live knowing his utter mediocrity is by his own design. That feeds into the Backrooms’ mythology, as Mark Duplass’ character introduces the looming presence of Async, who are spying in the background. Parsons treats Backrooms like an existential manifesto about how our memories are always askew, which is a heavy topic—and yet, his film feels hazy and light. 

Light on momentum, light on inescapable dread, and light on the conceptual unity of ideas that can feel at odds.

Truthfully, you can clock the mentorship of certain producers, particularly Oz Perkins. Parsons leans into the conscious unreality of Clark’s Backrooms exposures with a lingering, slow-burning sensibility. It’s a simmer that never boils, and drags its 110-minute duration. My biggest fear coming in was if Parsons and company would overcomplicate what makes the Backrooms so daunting—their amorphous nothingness—and that’s exactly what happens. In fleshing out the dimly-lit lore of A24’s Backrooms continuity, Parsons explains away much of the back-half’s scarier elements. Where late-night TikTok scrolls through Backrooms videos benefit from short bursts of morbid creativity, Parsons’ film tries to be substantially more than a survival curio. It’s admirable, but frustratingly, tumbles into valleys as deep as the film’s haunting peaks are high.

Backrooms is not a less-is-more scenario; it’s the inverse. And yet, Parsons achieves some magnificently eerie bits that had me giddy with fandom hype. Cinematographer Jeremy Cox slowly passes over every oblong or abstract corner of these “architecture on acid” rooms, whether shrinking ramps lead to tiny doors, or while an M. C. Escher-esque sense of delusion invades your mind. There are also brutal reveals that favor Backrooms interpretations, where despicable creatures are more prevalent. Parsons highlights not only his Backrooms lore, but what’s become popularized by a fandom starving for more unhinged additions to hazmat-dressed canon.

So, I’m somewhere in the middle on Backrooms. Parsons deserves every heap of praise he’ll earn: as director, as co-composer, and as O.G. storyteller. But the experience is missing a punchier gear. It’s too long without spunk, too listless at times, and there’s not as strong a handle on matching entertainment with pie-in-the-sky philosophical screeds. This is the thinkin’ person’s Backrooms, and yet it doesn’t read as tight or fleshed out as the approach lets on. I wish I had more enthusiasm to give—I, too, feel caught in a strange in-between.

Movie Score: 3/5