Intensity: 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by Kane Parsons
Written by Will Soodik and Kane Parsons
It’s finally time to do a review for Backrooms. I know, I know. I’m a little late to the party. The great uncanny valley that is the Backrooms phenomenon led to the great unexpected hit of the summer. How the hell did a slow-burning philosophical liminal horror movie manage to beat Star Wars straight up at the Box Office in the summer of 2026? Even after seeing the film, the improbability stuns me. The power of alternate media certainly plays a part, but it’s not the whole story. Two tremendous performances by Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve sold the wildly original story, and word of mouth could not have been better. Let us dig in to how this came to be.
Backrooms defies all logic. It wasn’t exactly a tiny independent film. It boasted a $10,000,000 budget and had quality thespians playing the leads. However, it is also a movie being directed by a 22-year-old director creating his first feature film. Had this managed to make a profit, it would have been remarkable. Say, $25 million would have been a wild success. To date, Backrooms has grossed $394,954,461 worldwide. SAY WHAT?
The success of the other little horror hit this year, Obession, makes more sense. That film is a crowd pleaser, with a wish-fulfillment-gone-wrong storyline that many would find relatable. Backrooms, on the other hand, is a bleak treatise on memory and regrets made manifest. It is bathed in an ugly yellow hue and hides its real horror until the third act. This is not exactly the recipe that should succeed at this level. Credit A24’s credentials and marketing to get the word out. But how does this explain that in many cities, cinemas were selling out their theaters? Every showing in Portland was selling out, and every week, more theaters got added, as cinema owners wanted to capture the magic.
Kane Parsons had hit a nerve with his YouTube streaming series Backrooms, which became a cult hit. This demonstrates some real power behind the streaming algorithm. But consider that Slenderman, perhaps the most viral Creepypasta urban legend, failed to capitalize on its popularity to the same extent ($50 million… not shabby, but it ain’t Backrooms box office.) What comes into play here is Parsons’ singular vision, executed to a very high level, with full credit to a heady and intelligent screenplay, executed by high-level actors. A24 picked up on his vision and gave it an appropriate budget. Call the bank manager!
The Cast of Backrooms
- Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Clark, a trained architect with failed dreams, who has been relegated to running a failing furniture retail warehouse. He carries the baggage of an ugly divorce, along with his crushed aspirations.
- Renate Reinsve plays Mary, Clark’s psychologist, who has deep trauma of her own. She assists Clark with his consuming regrets, while repressing her own inner demons. She grew up locked in a house with a paranoid mother who hoarded junk and papered over the windows of their home. Sometimes, that’s why you become a shrink.
- Mark Duplass plays Phil, a corporate lackey who knows much more about the Backrooms than he can admit.
- Finn Bennett is one of Clark’s employees at Captain Clark’s Ottoman Empire. He is curious and courageous, and has become enamored with his VHS recorder.
- Lukita Maxwell plays Kat, Clark’s assistant manager, and Finn’s protective girlfriend. She’s the cautious one who is reluctant to explore the backrooms.
- Robert Bobroczkyi plays Pirate Clark, a terrifying abstraction of Clark who lurks in the Backrooms.
A Synopsis of Backrooms:
We are introduced to the Backrooms spaces, following an anonymous man in a hazmat suit wandering through endless monochromatically ochre yellow corridors. We watch from a first-person perspective from his filming vantage point. He keeps running into dead ends and wrong turns. Eventually, a shadowy figure attacks him as he steps into yet another corridor.
Back in San Jose, 1990, we join Clark having a therapy session with Mary. They role-play out his breakup with his ex-wife. It reveals latent anger and frustrations that stem from his failure as an architect, subsequent alcohol abuse, and resentment of his law student ex-wife. We next see Clark at Captain Clark’s Ottoman Empire, his discount furniture warehouse, where he has dressed up as a pirate for a low-fi local access TV commercial. He pitches, “No Credit, No Problem! Everything is on Sale!” as his employees Kat and Bobby film the cheap advertisement. It is a sad testimonial to shattered dreams. Worse yet, he lives in the store after being kicked out of his home. He discovers an electrical issue: the lights intermittently short out.
As he investigates the power issue, he discovers an illusory wall in the store’s basement. This magical passage leads to the Backrooms. These are places, but not places. Transitional locations where corridors lead to rooms full of junk. Some rooms have random pieces of furniture half-absorbed into the floors and walls. Other rooms are upside-down, or have forced-perspective doors and portals that lead to strange crawl spaces. This is a dystopian allegory for his life’s failures. A combination of maddening sameness infused with distorted realities.
He confesses his discoveries to Mary, but his rantings make little sense. After failing to convince Mary of this new universe he found, he manages to coax Bobby and Kat to help him “research” the Backrooms. Overtime pay talks. Clark gears up, Bobby brings the video camera, and Kat worriedly cautions restraint. Into the Backrooms they go, and as we know from the introduction, something dark and dangerous awaits.
Evaluation of Backrooms
What to make of this unusual film? It is not an easy movie to attach to. It’s much more of an intellectual exercise than an emotional one, until late in the movie. The story leaves a lot to interpretation, and my perception of this is that of a personal limbo or hell. I can identify with Clark. I am, by trade, an architect (The Scariest Things is my side hustle). The Backrooms are a monotonous hellscape. There is an old video game, ironically from the era that takes place in Backrooms, called Zork. It was a text-based game, and there were sections that stated: “You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.” In fact, many of my nightmares usually involve moving down anonymous corridors that go on forever and ever.
2×4 acoustic ceiling tile ceilings, fluorescent troffer fixtures, identical wallpaper and floors, it all blends together in a dreary sameness. Architecture hell. This is it. To that end, the visuals are striking, but not enticing. This is intentionally ugly. Even Captain Carter’s Ottoman Empire is a bland and unremarkable strip mall store. Point taken. Clark has hit rock bottom.
Is it scary? Not really. Is it dreadful? Hell yes. This is a very discomforting movie. There, but by the grace of God, go I. I am so appreciative of having seen this to have a career based upon great and memorable buildings and projects I can be proud of. Clark missed that chance, and man, if the Backrooms are a metaphor for his loss, I get it.
Liminal Horror
This is a fairly recently understood horror delivery method. It is perhaps the most passive form of horror, and is one that seeps into your consciousness rather than bludgeoning you with jump scares and gore. The uncanny valley is a term that describes something that is just a little off. It is close to real, but off just enough that it makes you unwilling to accept what you see. Digitally rendered characters fall into this trap regularly. Close, but not quite, and your brain doesn’t buy it. (Grand Moff Tarkin, anyone?)
Liminal Horror focuses on physical places that are “the in-between.” It makes you stare at the screen and gives you that uncomfortable psychological itch. Corridors, doors, stairs, and tunnels all play into the notion that you aren’t in a settled place. These are places of transition, of movement, and, of course, places of dreams. In film, liminal horror will provide a static camera and wait.
The audience will stare into the shadows until they see something… or maybe not. Movies like Skinamarink relied heavily on this. Discordant music helps. The Shining, with auteur Stanley Kubrick at the camera, masterfully used the Overlook Hotel and its environs to trouble the viewer. Add in deep focus pulls and camera speeds (Think of the blood coming out of the elevator) and there is a surrealism that keeps the viewer off balance.
Backrooms mastered the liminal form of horror. And know this: Liminal horror isn’t everybody’s preference. It plays with the brain. Liminal horror settles in. This makes you guess your own recognition of what is going on. And when a big jump scare hits, it lands with additional power, since you have been destabilized by all the environmental cues.
The Performances:
You expect great performances from Chiwetel Ejiofor, he of the expressive brow and eyes. Chiwetel delivered. Because of the box office success of this movie, the artistic acclaim, and Ejiofor’s legacy, don’t be surprised if he gets an Oscar nod come December. This is the first film that I have seen Reinsve in, and I was thoroughly impressed. Her end-of-movie moments will be talked about for ages. Her character is as broken as Clark, but Mary has clearly been able to treat herself to the point where she has masked her issues. But again, the ending of the movie suggests that her damage is still very much there. Maybe some awards in her future too? I hope so.
Bennett and Maxwell are good in their supporting roles, but this really is Ejiofor and Reinsv’s movie. Duplass has a small role, but it links Parsons’ previous Backrooms online material to the movie. Given how successful this movie has been, do not be surprised if a sequel uses Duplass as the central figure.
Also, a shout-out to big Robert Bobroczkyi, the 7′-7″ Romanian basketball actor turned creature feature actor. Robert crawling around in the Backrooms Maze with the warped Captain Carter costume on must have been a serious challenge. I love when there is a specialist creature feature actor to showcase. Bolaji Badejo (Alien) and Kevin Peter Hall (Predator) would be proud. If you can’t make it in the NBA, Hollywood has jobs for giants too.
Concluding Thoughts
I wouldn’t go so far as to call this a masterpiece. It is a bit too standoffish for me to call it an enjoyable film. The movie takes a while to gain momentum, and if you aren’t already dialed into the background of Backrooms the meme, it will be a bit of a headscratcher at times. This is 100% a movie that you should watch with somebody else, and then talk about in a coffee shop afterward.
This is likely to be a Film School favorite. Meanings layered on meanings in the story and execution of the work, in addition to being a stratospheric accomplishment from a director who is so young. It’s almost incomprehensible that this movie has the wisdom it does, given Parsons’ youth. What else can this man do? It gives every independent filmmaker hope. These are HIS ideas, with HIS execution, and a little bit of help from A24 doesn’t hurt.
Backrooms will be a landmark film, like The Blair Witch Project or One Cut of the Dead. Films that announced the arrival of something fresh and hugely successful, from minimal beginnings. Also, it will forever be paired with Obsession as representing a changing of the cinema guard. Little horror movies that took a double-barreled shotgun blast to the failed blockbusters of 2026. If Sinners, The Substance, and Weapons weren’t enough of a message to Hollywood, then the Summer of 2026 will spell it out for them: Original horror concepts are worth bank, if you give good creative types the room to tell their own stories.
Backrooms is available streaming, but is still at “purchase price” fees. Backrooms is rated R for language and some violent content/bloody images. However, this film is more adult-themed intellectually, so if you are a teen who is interested in the Liminal concepts, go for it.