Backrooms

First time director Kane Parsons takes a simple premise and runs with it in this eerie and immersively atmospheric psychological horror film.  Tonally, it’s like the lovechild of The Blair Witch Project and David Lynch’s more surrealist filmography, and it also has a timeless quality that feels grounded in its 1990 setting while also capturing the zeitgeist of the here and now.

Premise:  In 1990’s America, struggling furniture store owner Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is seeing therapist Doctor Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve) in a attempt to deal with the fallout from his failed marriage.  While instigating strange power fluctuations in his store, Clark finds a portal in his basement to a mysterious – and possibly extradimensional – space which appears to be an endless maze of eerie hallways and uncanny rooms…

Review:

I’d not seen director Kane Parsons’ web-series The Backrooms, so I came to this feature-length spin-off with no preconceptions, other than a vague awareness of the original urban legend/’creepypasta’ about The Backrooms as a concept (which is certainly not a prerequisite to enjoying this movie).  As such, I was blown away with the atmosphere, tension and suspense that Kane Parsons (who’s still only 20 years old) was able to generate with his direction, which doesn’t simply rely on jump-scares and other cheap tricks, and instead develops an unnerving and ominous sense of unease as the movie progresses.

The direction inside the liminal spaces of the ‘Backrooms’ (which are never actually called that in the movie) is intensely unsettling – from the use of wide angle lenses to accentuate the negative space, to the off-putting bilious yellow hue of the décor and the ever-present hum of fluorescent lighting, everything in the ‘Backrooms’ is designed to put you on edge on an almost subliminal level.

“…conjures up some genuinely disturbing & surreal imagery…”

Add to that the judicious but effective use of ‘found footage’ to really put audiences in the shoes of certain characters (in perhaps the most immersive and inventive use of first-person subjective storytelling since The Blair Witch Project), and the end result is a film that really gets under your skin.

But Backrooms also isn’t just a one-trick pony – as well as its eerie and foreboding atmosphere, it also conjures up some genuinely disturbing and surreal imagery, the kind of stuff that wouldn’t look at out of place in an early David Lynch movie.  I don’t want to say too much about what the characters may find in the ‘Backrooms’, but some of the imagery feels like it comes straight out of a feverish nightmare.  Kane Parsons also builds suspense and tension expertly throughout the time spent in the ‘Backrooms’, whether it be through the use of unidentified sounds, things half-glimpsed in the distance or around corners, or a sense of barely perceivable movement in the dark recesses.

“…for audiences who enjoy their horror a little more on the surreal side…”

Given that this is a debut film from a (and I’ll say this again) 20-year-old unproven director, it was also a surprise to me that Kane Parsons has been able to attract such a talented and experienced cast.  The Oscar-nominated Chiwetel Ejiofor and the Oscar-nominated Renate Reinsve lead the film as struggling furniture store owner Clark and his therapist Mary, but even smaller roles are filled by rising stars like Finn Bennett and veterans like Mark Duplass, all of which helps to add to the impact of the movie.

All in all, it’s probably fair to say that Backrooms isn’t the type of film that’s necessarily trying to be a mainstream horror hit, given it’s decision to avoid cheap jump-scares or slasher-movie gore – but for audiences who enjoy their horror a little more on the surreal side (while still being relatively accessible, provided you’re happy to not have everything spelled out too neatly), I feel this is destined to become a modern cult classic of the genre.