Clark, a manager of a furniture store, finds a secret magical door to seemingly endless rooms with strange and distorted designs, and things quickly become spooky and surreal.
So Backrooms is making a lot of money at the box office; it’s very successful, and I think that’s because the big selling point of this movie is the visuals of the backrooms themselves. They start out very simple, yellow rooms with furniture around, almost looking like a Salvador Dalí painting, parts with chairs being refused to the ceiling or different shoes melting into the floor, but everything is shot in big, wide, flat angles, and you’re just following people going from room to room. It's very good at putting you in the shoes of the characters and just wondering what you’re going to see next because you’ll be in one room and then go to a holiday room and then a room that looks like a spa, and then you’ll go, and then you’re in a classroom. It's like when you’re in a dream and things will just change or feel off automatically, but you don’t realize it because you’re in a dream. It's like a weird David Lynch acid dream version of that, which we’ve all had crazy dreams before, so it’s something we can all relate to.
Another strong point of the movie are the two leads, as previous stated there’s Clark (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor) who’s going through a bit of a rough patch in his marriage and work life, and you do feel sympathy for him and his situation, but the mark goes on the more you realize this guy definitely has some issues he needs to work through, he makes for a complex and interesting protagonist, and Ejiofor is one of those actors who always brings a lot of emotion and gravitas to his roles.
The other protagonist is Clark’s therapist, Mary (played by Renate Reinsve), who is also going through her own emotional journey, and her character is a little more straightforward, but I like the actress and the vibe/acting choices she brought to the role; they just post well with what Chiwetel was doing, but also bring a breath of fresh air to the story and tone. Plus, I like her emotional arc and the payoff for it; it was simple but effective, the best kind of payoff lol.
The supporting cast was all very good; Mark Dupless has a small but intriguing role, and he’s very good at playing very quiet, minimal characters.
It won’t be a horror movie without some young teens who may or may not be killed, and Finn Bennett & Lukita Maxwell both bring a chilled but grounded perspective to the situation and work well off Clark; they also bring a nice comic element, which, given how sterile and unnerving things get, definitely brings a nice levity.
Krista Kosonen probably has the smallest amount of screen time, but with just a look, she really sells her performance and has a very memorable part.
I can’t say much about Robert Bobroczkyi's role in the film, but I’ll say two things… 1. God damn lol, and 2. He was very effective.
I’d be interested to know how the crew created the back rooms. Did they rent out a building and just create all these different levels with unique designs, or was there some CGI fiddling? Because honestly, you can’t really tell, and you can tell whoever was in charge of designing the back rooms was having a lot of fun with the distorted, almost avant-garde design of everything, as described in the film “It's like a copy of a copy of a copy."
You know if you had told me what the “big bad” of the film was on paper. It may not seem like much, but in the final film, it takes what could be a silly idea and makes it genuinely creepy and intimidating.
The film takes place in 1990, and so they use a lot of the big analog tape cameras for some shots, and I thought that added a lot of atmosphere and a cool look to everything, not to mention really making you feel like you’re in the perspective of the characters. Now there is a few moments where I’m like “dude why are you filming this, freaking run?”, but that’s something that happens in a lot of found footage type horror films and it’s not too bad, in fact there’s one jump scare that doesn’t even have any big blasting music and it’s for the most part silent I even got me, so good for you Backrooms
The soundtrack was very minimal but effective, and I think that is mostly lit with fluorescent lights and is still unnerving.
I could see this film getting some type of sequel where we see more Backrooms with maybe different characters, but it could also work as a standalone film, but give the box office, so I’m predicting we will probably see Backrooms 2 at some point in the near future.
The director of this film is Kane Parson, who worked on the original Backrooms viral videos when they were first released, so he definitely gets the tone right, but he’s actually 20 years old, which is kind of crazy considering how effective and talented he is at only 20… Like, how dare he? Can you just be lazy like we all were at 20? Why do you have to make us look bad? lol
I will say the third act does go in a slightly different direction, like I feel like where it ended up could’ve been set up a little better and it does feel a little separate from the rest of the film, but it is helped with some good performances and character moments, not to mention a few creepy visuals, but like I said, it could’ve been working into the store a little better
Also, this really has nothing to do with the movie, but it was kind of funny to see how many name producers worked on this film; like, the producer credits were pretty long, and it seemed like the only person they were missing was Steven Spielberg lol.
Overall, the film may have a simple premise of people wandering through creepy rooms, but the filmmaking, acting, style, tone, and visuals really elevate this into something unique and special. I give Backrooms a low four stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I mean, something that makes low-end furniture stores seem scary is doing something right, lol.
