- Director: Kane Parsons
- Screenplay: Will Soodik
- Based on: ‘Backrooms‘ by Kane Parsons
- Producer: James Wan, Michael Clear, Roberto Patino, Shawn Levy, Dan Cohen, Dan Levine, Osgood Perkins, Chris Ferguson, Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping, Kori Adelson
- Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, Lukita Maxwell
- Cinematography: Jeremy Cox
- Editing: Greg Ng
- Score: Edo Van Breemen, Kane Parsons
- Genre: Science fiction psychological horror
- Runtime: 110 minutes
YouTube is proving to be fertile ground for aspiring filmmakers. Following the success of Curry Barker’s ‘Obsession‘, we have Kane Parsons, who turned twenty-one a couple of weeks ago. With ‘Backrooms‘, his directorial debut, he proves his young age is no barrier to creating such an intriguing project.
It all started with a picture posted on 4chan; a hallway, completely empty, eerie, sickly yellow walls. A liminal space. Parsons, inspired by this image, published a series of shorts on YouTube in found footage format. They detail the exploration of these “backrooms” by scientists working for the Async Research Institute. It’s not mandatory viewing before watching the big screen story but doing so will fill in a few puzzle pieces.
Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a loser. He’s a failed architect, his wife has left him, and he works in a furniture store. Business isn’t doing great either. He stays until after hours; not doing paperwork, but swigging booze and lying on a showroom bed. One night, Clark chances upon a crack in the wall and when he investigates further, he finds himself transported into another dimension.
He’s entered the Backrooms.
Walls everywhere, the colour of Post-it notes. Corridors stretching endlessly. Fluorescent lights overhead. It’s an approximation of an office workspace, as if the design plans had been written in Japanese and lost in translation. Some areas contain furniture. There’s a pool (of sorts). A room randomly filled with a Christmas tree. Holes in the floor. Oddly shaped doors.
There’s no logic. No natural light. No escape – unless you remember the way back, and given that there’s miles upon miles of yellow carpets, you’d better make a map. Can you hear the footsteps of someone? Something?
Parsons continues the grainy quality camera footage from his web series in small doses, the majority of the film being from a third person perspective. Thus, we get to experience the Backrooms in all their glory. The visual storytelling is terrific; a creepiness pervades the air. A feeling of claustrophobia in wide open spaces. Trapped in a nightmarish limbo state.
This cinematic adaptation is more character-driven than the YouTube shorts; this allows for meaningful dialogue between Clark and his therapist (Renate Reinsve). Could the Backrooms be a manifestation of Clark’s psyche? The backdrop of trauma distorted through layers of memory?
We don’t receive a direct explanation of the enigma that is the Backrooms. Maybe that’s a good thing – the best mysteries remain unsolved.
My rating: 8 / 10
SilverScreen 