From a picture of a vacant furniture store to a 4chan thread and now an A24 feature film, Backrooms has made the rare yet exciting jump from internet meme to global horror sensation. YouTuber-turned-director Kane Parsons turned the meme into an ongoing 2022 web series which in turn inspired this feature-length adaptation based on his established lore.
This narrative expands the image beyond the frame, following Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a struggling architect, as he discovers the door to a liminal space in the basement of his furniture store. It’s a simple concept with an eerie setup, sitting in the realm of a found footage film with psychological horror elements, but also dipping its toes into the realms of science fiction and the supernatural. The opening found footage sequence is a wonderful tone-setter, giving off a creepy and unsettling atmosphere that lingers for the duration of the film. It’s simple, doesn’t show or reveal anything obviously scary, and introduces a mystery that looms quietly over the bulk of the story. As far as tone goes; this film does a wonderful job of evoking the same uncomfortable vibe as looking at that original backrooms image does. It has a relatively sizeable budget compared to other small-scale horror films, but still feels somewhat gritty and amateur in its approach to horror – doing its best to send chills down your spine without showing too much.
The first 3/4 of this film is effectively creepy and spine-chilling without needing to do much heavy lifting. The setting alone is uncanny enough that even with no score, following our characters meandering through the backrooms is terrifying. It’s a great exploration of atmospheric horror; letting the vibes do all the scaring so you don’t have to show the threat terrorising our characters, because more often than not that will strip away the horror if not handled correctly. As it flips in and out of frantic found footage sections, we encounter a number of genuinely horrifying sequences that are sure to please even the most seasoned horror fans.
While it doesn’t require a score to be scary, any instance in which the heart-pounding score does kick in is a step above. The score helps with building tension across the film’s most haunting sequences, getting more intense and ramping up as time goes on. I mentioned earlier that there’s a sci-fi element to this narrative that I feel elevates it beyond just a creepy, unsettling found-footage horror. It adds a layer of depth, intrigue and mystery that I wasn’t expecting to see in a film with such a relatively straightforward yet also insane concept.
While this film gets so much right with its tone, atmosphere and narrative, the execution of its climax pulls the veil back a little too far. Backrooms embraces the weird and uncanny, as it should, but I feel like it delves so deep in the climax that it comes at the sacrifice of the horror elements. The concept is still terrifying, but the execution is nowhere near as impactful, leaving a slightly sour taste in my mouth when the credits roll. Overall it’s a gripping horror experience, but that finale is just a little too abnormal.
Chiwetel Ejiofor gives everything in his leading performance, delving deep into the character and perfectly capturing the various mental states his character experiences. While his performance allows the horror to be impactful, it’s not much of a standout performance. When thinking back on this movie, his performance won’t be a negative, but it won’t be one of the biggest praises either. Renate Reinsve plays Mary, a therapist in the film, and honestly I would have loved for her to play more of a role. There’s depth to her character that goes unexplored, and from what she shows in her somewhat limited time on screen, there’s the potential for a real standout performance in there.
In the end, Backrooms is an unsettling horror experiment that brings a single image to life in a very effective and eerie manner. With the occasional found footage sequence and a spine-chilling score, this narrative takes an intriguing concept and turns it into a haunting horror film. It’s not so terrifying that it will leave you in fear for the rest of the night, but it certainly gets the heart rate pumping and will have you locked in with a blend of unsettling horror sequences and chaotic mystery sequences.
8/10
