GENRE | 'Backrooms' Finds A Psychological Horror Detour

"It's every place that ever was."

A24 / Elevation Pictures

Talented twenty-year-old YouTuber and visual effects artist Kane "Pixels" Parsons turns his nightmarish 22-episode found-footage creepypasta web series into a fully-fledged psychological horror feature. Filmed in Vancouver, Backrooms' basic premise revolves around a mysteriously elaborate but oddly abandoned series of secret interdimensional "backroom" liminal spaces found beneath a suburban discount furniture warehouse showroom located in a generic strip mall somewhere in 1990s middle America.

Starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve as the deeply troubled store owner and his concerned therapist, Parsons' assured but distinct vision moves the standard horror vibes into bizarrely interesting directions. Ejiofor and Reinsve's committed performances anchor the strange happenings well enough, but what these series of events and rooms expose feels far too insular for the otherwise immersive cinematic experience.

Written by genre television screenwriter Will Soodik, his sparse script lets Parsons set the moody and eerie atmosphere of internal dread with only the necessary amount of dialogue, exposition, and explanation needed. As other characters (Finn Bennett, Lukita Maxwell, and Mark Duplass) move further into the video game level environment of open-world portals, more and less are revealed at the same time to mixed audience reactions. Regardless, the odd but hypnotic nightmare fuel of past traumas and histories being exploited through twisted hallways, corridors, and doorways feels genuinely terrifying (think Severance).

Produced by a cadre of film directors, including James Wan, Shawn Levy, and Osgood Perkins, Backrooms is an impressive horror film debut for anyone, much less someone in their teens or twenties known for producing found-footage online videos. It's a confident but ultimately a little too ambitious and subsequently slight for the kind of visually-focused film it eventually reveals itself to be.

Backrooms screens at the Park Theatre with an immersive "liminal space" activation set up in its lobby.


More | YVArcade / Indiewire / ScreenCrush