A strange doorway appears in the basement of a furniture showroom in this adaptation of the global phenomenon from Kane Parsons.

The Garden Cinema View:

The liminal space may well come to be seen as a defining aesthetic of early 20th Century American media. Lorcan Finnegan’s Vivarium (2019), Lynch’s Inland Empire (2006), Genki Kawamura’s recent J-horror Exit 8, Kyle Edward Ball’s Skinamarink (2022), and Apple TV’s hit series Severance have all drawn from this uncanny and bland visual form that frequently refers to Mark Z. Danielewski’s novel House of Leaves (2000). Despite its relative freshness, then-16 year old YouTuber Kane Parsons’ Backrooms web series has quickly become one of touchstones of the form.

Parsons is now a (still) very young (20) feature filmmaker with this big screen translation featuring Oscar-nominated lead actors and horror royalty producers (Osgood Perkins, James Wan). There’s a degree of psychological shallowness and missed symbolism given the professions (therapist and architect) of his protagonists, but Parsons is seemingly more interested in the atmosphere and the appearance of the backrooms themselves. For a film that shares DNA with Charlie Kaufman’s Being John Malkovich and Synecdoche New York, its perhaps fitting to learn that over 30,000 square feet of actual backrooms were built as a set. And although Backrooms settles down into a fun thrill ride rather than a truly unsettling exploration of liminality, moving through these spaces is always a strangely alluring and disconcerting experience.  

Cast:
Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass