BACKROOMS follows furniture salesman Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) as he makes a startling discovery in the basement of his showroom. A portal, bathed in yellow fluorescent lights and littered with familiar objects, leading to an eerie maze of endless office space.
The science fiction horror film is directed by Kane Parsons, in his feature-length directorial debut, and written by Will Soodik. Set in 1990, it is based on Parsons’ viral YouTube web series and inspired by the “Backrooms” creepypasta that orignated on 4Chan, which popularised the online obsession with so-called “liminal spaces”. The film stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, and Lukita Maxwell.
BACKROOMS is an experiential nightmare of the best kind. From the moment we enter the portal to the endless space a feeling of utter dread pervades the experience of watching Clark walk through the space. Like stumbling upon an abandoned location you know you’re not meant to be in, stuck between the feeling of knowing you should leave against the morbid curiosity of exploring to see how far it goes.
There is incredible cinematography here, both inside the backrooms world, and in the real world. In the ordinary world, the film is set in San Jose, California. Parsons shoots the city with an immaculate eye for strong geometric shapes in the way he frames the archutecture and the natural landscapes. It’s a very interesting way of platyng with framing and horizons. Parsons loves hard angles and making places look picture perfect in a nearly sterile and ultra-modernist manner. Even the vistas we get of a sunset lit golden and pink Californian skyline are aestheticised in a way that works well with the the absolutely chaos of the backrooms world.
The set design and miss en scene of Backrooms is absolutely incredible, it is what makes the movie. Without it it would be a generic horror fantasy about a wormhole that goes to some scary place. Rather, this is about liminal spaces that seem to reflect reality but aren’t what they actually appear. One extended feeling of being in an abandoned office building or shut down mall, gone deeply wrong.
Backrooms is in cinemas from May 29th.
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