Backrooms

Capt'n Clark's Ottoman Empire is a failing, pirate-themed furniture store whose owner, Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor, "Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy"), is struggling with alcoholism and anger management, having recently been thrown out of his house by his wife. After showing his therapist, Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve, "Sentimental Value"), a map he's drawn of the expansive maze of rooms he says he's found in the basement of his store, he disappears, leading her to go in search of him in the "Backrooms."

Laura's Review: B-

In 2002, someone took a picture of a Wisconsin furniture store as it underwent renovations, a large commercial expanse with yellow carpeting and walls. The image became a creepypasta in 2019 when someone began a thread with the photo, suggesting others post additional pictures that seemed 'off.' Then early in 2022 a teenager, Kane Parsons, uploaded a horror short based on that idea, "The Backrooms (Found Footage)," which he turned into a web series. Now that same Kane Parsons, along with screenwriter Will Soodik (TV's 'Ash vs. Evil Dead'), has adapted the whole into a feature film for A24.

There is also an Internet phenomenon known as liminal spaces, abandoned or empty spaces that project a feeling of unease. I would trace all of this back to Mark Z. Danielewski's seminal 2000 cult novel 'House of Leaves' which has inspired many, but rarely been equaled. That would also apply to 2026's "Backrooms," a film which may appeal to its Internet followers, but like too many horror films from new filmmakers this year, takes a great premise and fails to build a fully satisfying narrative around it (see "Undertone," "Obsession," Genki Kawamura's second feature "Exit 8," and the third film from Daniel Goldhaber, "Faces of Death""). In all other respects, though, Parsons, who even composed his film's score along with Edo Van Breemen ("The Monkey," "Keeper"), exhibits real filmmaking chops.

Parsons begins with a prologue featuring Hazmat suited explorers from Async, the MRI manufacturer turned research facility he created for his series, in the Backrooms Clark has yet to find. We get the POV of one of their handheld video cameras which begins to shake the more its shooter begins to panic. He's lost and, finding a 1990s style control room which they have apparently set up, tries to contact someone to help him find his way out. We will note a dead seagull, furniture attached to a wall and leaves on the ground before a strange figure rushes him, the camera falling to the floor. We are then transported to suburbia years earlier where Dr. Kline, then a little girl (Ember Ambrose), and her mother (Krista Kosonen) create handprints in the cement in front of their modest home. Later we will see a piece of this cement in Dr. Kline's office.

When we finally meet Clark, it's clear the man is struggling and things are getting weird. An electrician called in to figure out why the store's overhead fluorescents flicker finds two oddly installed switches in the downstairs fuse box. Clark's attempt to respond to a competitor's TV add by dressing as a pirate in a video shot by his assistant manger Kat's (Lukita Maxwell, TV's 'Shrinking') boyfriend Bobby (Finn Bennett, "Warfare") ends with him sitting on one of his store's chairs which collapses. His manner with the teens is borderline abusive and we'll find him after hours watching TV from a showroom bed, a bottle of whiskey at hand. Then the lights go on in the basement, shining up from the stairs and when Clark goes down to investigate he'll notice a slim shaft of light where solid wall should be. He walks right through, finding himself in an expansive yellow space with furniture piled in the center which opens to more and more rooms and corridors adorned with strange objects, eerie noises suggesting he's not alone. Clark finds his way back and after a couple of sessions with Dr. Kline which see his anger turn into something like hysteria, he enlists Kat and Bobby to enter the Backrooms with him to get video proof for the therapist. Their excursion turns frightening and violent and they never return.

Back in Dr. Kline's orbit we will see in flashback that her mother apparently had a similar experience in their suburban home, eventually committed to a psychiatric hospital. The daughter who grew up to publish 'The Window Within,' a self help book Clark has been listening to in his car which uses walking through spaces as psychological metaphor, arrives at Clark's furniture store to find it open but no one there. Downstairs, she notes blue tape marking off a door shape and witnesses a fly disappear within it. She goes through, eventually finding Clark driven mad by the Backrooms and although she eventually finds her way out, her future looks bleak as she's 'contained' by Async.

There is never any kind of explanation given for The Backrooms, which recreates places and people with a skewed sensibility, other than an individual's psychology, nor is its interior logic consistent (people can morph into barely recognizable human figures, yet Clark appears to have spawned a giant version of himself as Cap'n Clark). Nor do we get much in the way of a conclusion. But Kane does have the ability to create an unsettling atmosphere, the production design (by "Longlegs'" Danny Vermette) of his 30,000 square foot set the star of the show. Eugenio Battaglia's ("Longlegs") sound design is also an important contributing factor, an underlying buzz of fluorescents a constant, echoey voices emanating from unknown places. Cinematographer Jeremy Cox ("Keeper") changes styles, smoothly following characters while obscuring just enough to keep our eyes darting about the frame while within the Backrooms, handheld chaos from video cameras' points of view. One sequence gives the impression of rooms building below each other, Cox panning downwards through various rooms, editor Greg Ng making it appear like a single shot. Makeup effects are creepy.

Ejiofor is actually one of the film's scarier elements, his character's downward spiral making those around him nervous, a 180 degree turn from "The Life of Chuck's" Marty. Reinsve seems overqualified for a role that is mostly reactive, although she enjoys a thought provoking final scene with Mark Duplass' ("Creep") Async engineer.

Maybe there will be sequels which provide more answers, but a feature film should stand by itself. For more successful examples of the creepy space genre, check out 2020's "The Night House" and 2022's "Skinamarink."

A24 releases "Backrooms" in theaters on 5/29/26.