Those We Lost in the Cracks Between

I want to encourage you to go and see the movie I’m sorta reviewing here today. The Backrooms, directed by newcomer Kane Parsons, is a spin-off / soft adaptation of a web series Parsons created when he was 16. If you’re not aware of this series, it’s based on a creepypasta that’s been circulating the internet since 2019 when a 4chan user posted a picture of a yellow-wallpapered room, (below) and included the following caption: 

“If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the Backrooms, where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in

God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you”

— Anonymous, 4chan (May 13, 2019)

(neither image or quote is mine.)

It’s a vibe as uncanny as Twin Peak’s Red Room, or the Overlook Hotel from the Shining, pure uncanny valley, distilled into one image.

I said I want to encourage you to see this movie, but I really don’t want to tell you too much about it. I was aware of the original post and had seen a few episodes of the webseries, but I wasn’t all that involved in the community that had been built up around it. This was, fortunately, the right state of mind to enjoy the movie. 

I’m certain die hard fans of the series would appreciate the movie on a deeper level than I did, but as I understand it, the story is largely standalone. Plot wise, it’s about a failing furniture salesman and his small circle of friends who stumble across a break in reality that leads to the backrooms... and the monsters that dwell inside. 

Saying anymore wouldn’t ... spoil the story per se, it’s pretty straight forward. But talking about the plot would ruin the effect that Kane Parsons successfully creates. People have complained about the pacing, without seeming to understand that the slow pace is essential to the dread growing in the movie. Parsons lets the story unfold deliberately, between long shots of the backrooms liminal spaces, and perfectly chosen edits switching to another shot. Fans of the webseries will b glad to know that the found footage effect from the series makes a return, successfully adding a direct POV to the series that really adds to the overall creepy effect. In other words, based purely on visuals alone, this is the single most anxiety inducing horror movie I’ve seen in a long time.

Of course, visuals don’t carry the story alone. Characters and performance help, and thank god for our leads Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve. I really want to dig into their dynamic, and explore the way that liminality, loneliness and isolation are used thematically in their arcs, but again, saying too much will ruin the effect. I will say this; these characters broken by trauma regarding families and the ordinary failures of life. Scenes of the movie slowly reveal the isolation they feel, and their reactions to the Backrooms are the exact opposite of each other, one with horror, and one with a slow, accepting, descent into insanity.

It’s a creepy movie. I’ve mentioned Twin Peaks and The Shining, but they’re not really comparable. After watching the movie, I’ve gone back to the original series and frankly, I don’t think those are comparable either. As a movie it’s a unique encapsulation of dread, where I loved every second.