BACKROOMS Reviewed by GREG KING
Director: Kane Parsons
Stars: Chiwtel Ejiofor, Renate Reisnve, Mark Duplass, Lukita Maxwell, Finn Bennett.
This supernatural horror film is the feature debut for young British American filmmaker Kane Parsons. Backrooms began life in 2022 as a short film on the You Tube streaming platform, where the nine-minute film garnered over 2 million views. The short film used the found footage genre effectively. Parsons gradually added more instalments to his original video, and the extended concept amassed over 200 million views through the popular social media platform.
Working with tv script writer Will Soodick, Parsons has expanded on the concept for his film debut, and Backrooms deals with potent themes of trauma, memory and regrets.
Most of the drama takes place within the confines of Cap’n Clark’s Ottoman Empire, a furniture store warehouse that is struggling to survive. The store is managed by Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor, from the Oscar winning 12 Years A Slave, etc), a failed architect. Clark is seeing psychiatrist Mary Kline (Swedish actress Renate Reinsve, from Sentimental Value, etc), seeking help to get over the pain of his recent divorce. He is bitter and resentful. Kline also has her own issues to resolve dating back to her own troubled childhood.
Clark has trouble with the electrics at the store as the lights keep flicking on and off. He stays late one night to investigate. Something incredible happens as Clark passes through a wall into a parallel universe where he encounters a bizarre labyrinth of walls and corridors and all manner of strange monsters. Kline also gets swept up into this horror show when she visits the store to check up on Clark.
Backrooms marks an assured feature debut for Parsons and is almost David Lynch-like with its surreal visual style. Many of the creative and technical people worked on the creepy serial killer thriller Longlegs, (not surprising as its director Osgood Perkins is credited as one of the producers here) thus giving Backrooms a similarly unsettling vibe. Parsons and his cinematographer Jeremy Cox employ a deft mix of found footage, point of view shots, video recordings and traditional film making techniques to flesh out his nightmarish vision, all of which has been deftly edited together by Greg Ng. There is some impressive production design from Danny Vermette. The walls of the warehouse are a sickly yellow colour, which is disconcerting and adds to the uneasiness we feel. There are a few well timed jump scares throughout the film, but Backrooms is more unsettling than scary as Parsons develops a slowly escalating atmosphere of dread and paranoia.
For the most part Backrooms is a two hander, and Parsons draws solid performances from his leads. Reinsve brings a vulnerability to her performance while Ejiofor brings an abrasive quality to his portrayal of a man falling apart mentally. Mark Duplass contributes a brief appearance as a slightly sinister looking doctor who knows more about these backrooms.
Shot on a small budget of $10 million, Backrooms has become the third highest grossing horror film of 2026. However, the film is not always comprehensible and will leave many scratching their heads as they exit the cinema.
★★★
