Backrooms (2026) A24/Sci-Fi-Horror RT: 110 minutes Rated R (language, some violent content/bloody images) Director: Kane Parsons Screenplay: Will Soodik Music: Kane Parsons and Edo Van Breemen Cinematography: Jeremy Cox Release date: May 29, 2026 (US) Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, Lukita Maxwell.
Rating: ***
It’s been a little over 12 hours since I watched Backrooms and I’m still attempting to wrap my mind around it all. I’ll grant that I’m at a disadvantage not having seen the popular webseries on which it’s based. The good news is the movie intrigued me enough to do some research afterwards. I found a couple of articles that cleared some things up.
The story behind Backrooms is really something. It all began with a single image, a creepypasta of a large, carpeted room with fluorescent lights and pale yellow walls. 17YO YouTube content creator Kane Parsons took it and ran with it, creating the series in 2022. It caught on enough that A24 greenlighted a film adaptation with Parsons at the helm. It’s pretty good as far as feature film debuts go.
Somebody mentioned beforehand that Backrooms would be a found-footage movie. You all know how I feel about those. Well, here’s some more good news. It’s NOT wholly found footage. In fact, only a few scenes (including the opening sequence) utilize that technique. The rest is business as usual although there’s nothing usual, normal or traditional about Backrooms. It doesn’t make a lot of sense which I think is precisely the point. It plays out like a nightmare and those rarely if ever make sense. If that’s what Parsons is going for here, he hits the nail right on the head.
Set in 1990, Clark (Ejiofor, The Life of Chuck) runs a discount furniture store. He stars on late night commercials hawking his inventory while dressed as a pirate. His personal life is a shambles. An alcoholic and divorcee, he’s taken up residence in his store. He regularly visits a therapist, Dr. Mary Kline (Reinsve, Sentimental Value), who listens patiently while he blames his problems on everybody but himself. She’s no stranger to trauma having been raised by a mentally ill mother. She sees right through the man’s BS, but doesn’t call him out on it.
One night, Clark makes a shocking discovery on the lower level of his store. While trying to figure out why his electric bill is so high, he finds a section of the wall that serves as a portal to the Backrooms. It’s a bizarre series of liminal spaces, empty rooms with poorly created furniture and something else, an evil monstrous something. It scares him yet he’s intrigued enough to keep going back to explore further. All the while, he’s being observed (via camera) by a white-coated guy (Duplass, The Morning Show) from a sinister corporation.
One thing about Backrooms I can say with absolute certainty; it’s going to baffle the f*** out of anybody over the age of 35. They’re going to need a Gen Z interpreter to explain what they just watched. It helps greatly to know the lore before you go in. I didn’t, so I just sat there trying to make sense of what was unfolding on the screen before me. It brought memories of the night I saw Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me at the cinema in ’92. I knew of but never watched the popular TV series. I only knew it dealt with the murder of a teen girl named Laura Palmer. Some of the film was lost on me to be sure, but I still enjoyed it immensely. I even rewatched it a bunch of times on video before I laid eyes on a single episode (which I finally did in ’01). I loved the weird and surreal vibe of the movie. I feel the same about Backrooms. It’s creepy and eerie and weird. Did I understand all of it? No, not at all. Did thinking about it for a bit help? Maybe just a little. Whatever, it’s one of the more interesting movies I’ve seen in a long time.
Backrooms isn’t a horror movie in the sense that it’s filled with “BOO!” scenes. It’s the other kind, the kind that unsettles the viewer by not explaining what’s happening. Like I said before, it plays out like a nightmare. It creeps up on you with disturbing imagery and a palpable sense of dread. You know something terrible lurks just out of sight. You know the people who enter the Backrooms probably won’t come out. You know a terrible fate awaits Clark’s assistant manager (Maxwell, Shrinking) and her boyfriend (True Detective: Night Country) when they accompany him into the Backrooms. You know all this and it still gets to you. That’s the sign of an effective horror film.
Ejiofor does a fine job as Clark, the not very heroic protagonist who refuses to own his personal issues. He’s the ideal person to be drawn into a nightmarish dimension. Reinsve is better as Mary, the troubled therapist still dealing with her own childhood trauma. That’s the baggage she brings with her when she goes to look for Clark in the Backrooms where she’ll be forced to confront demons both literal and figurative.
Parsons, aided by cinematographer Jeremy Cox, employs a hypnotic visual style that simultaneously disorients the viewer and builds a sense of claustrophobia. He deftly blends objective lensing with found-footage aesthetics to create a vision wholly the film’s own. It works in perfect synch with the insidious soundscape which includes a non-intrusive score that stays just beneath the surface. The emphasis is on silence and spacious echoes. It imbues Backrooms with a sense of empty, endless unease. The movie’s artistic aspects more than make up for any narrative shortcomings.
Ultimately, Backrooms leaves the viewer with more questions than answers. If it does well and I’m pretty sure it will, a second film will answer some of the questions. This first movie brings us into the universe. It lays the foundation for a world that will be expanded upon in future installments. For my part, it’s a world I look forward to exploring further.
