As fun and exciting it is to celebrate Kane Parsons, who, at 20, became the youngest director to have a number one movie at the box offices, the question we really have to grapple with regarding Backrooms is: should we be adapting 4chan? I’m just kidding, I don’t care. I wish I had an interesting angle or any angle at all with which to explain the fascination with Backrooms but having watched it… I’ve got nothing. I dig the aesthetic. It was fine.
Sometime in the early nineties, Clark (Academy Award nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a failed architect who owns the struggling furniture store Cap’n Clark’s Ottoman Empire. He is facing his drinking problem and struggling marriage by seeing therapist Mary Kline (Academy Award nominee Renate Reinsve), who we see in flashbacks has her own trauma related to her agoraphobic mother. Since Clark is currently living in his store, he’s noticed something strange is going on with the power and eventually stumbles through a wall into “the Backrooms,” an extradimensional labyrinth full of fluorescent lights and furniture. While exploring, Clark seems to alert some unseen figure and narrowly escapes back to our world.
Instantly obsessed with whatever the fuck that was, Clark goes on several more expeditions and eventually enlists his assistant manager Kat (Lukita Maxwell, from Shrinking) and her boyfriend, Bobby (Finn Bennett, from A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms), to help him gather proof. While Bobby films them with a camcorder, Clark leads the group to a steep, narrow corridor. Bobby spelunks down only to be attacked by whatever’s down there. Clark and Kat give chase and all three become separated. Some time later, Mary receives a cryptic message from Clark on her answering machine. Concerned about another 5150, Mary visits the store and finds her way to the Backrooms. But what exactly is waiting for her on the other side?
You get the impression, watching Backrooms, that this must mean a lot to somebody. Parsons insists that the film, written by TV veteran Will Soodik, is in strict continuity with his “Backrooms” YouTube series which is an adaptation of The Backrooms creepypasta from 4chan. So maybe the community considers Kane Pixels canon separate from the broader fandom or culture? I don’t know, honestly it seems overwhelming to dive into at this point.
As much as I just thought the movie was fine, I do absolutely vibe with the aesthetic and totally get how we got here. Creepy, malformed liminal spaces? Are you kidding? As someone who spent the last couple months replaying Control and then diving into its sequel Control Resonant, this felt right at home to me. Except everyone is always walking so slow! In video games, I’m always sprinting and jumping – I don’t got time to carefully consider each step down an infinite hallway. There’s plenty of this movie that is shot POV, going back to the series’ found footage YouTube roots, and that stuff is really great. Maybe the problem is when the camera is no longer in the characters’ hands we simply see too much?
Do I smell a future Mildly Pleased Award Nominee?