{"id":14527,"date":"2026-05-30T16:46:41","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T20:46:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=14527"},"modified":"2026-05-30T16:46:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T20:46:41","slug":"backrooms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2026\/05\/30\/backrooms\/","title":{"rendered":"Backrooms"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Backrooms<\/strong> (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A24\/Sci-Fi-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 110 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, some violent content\/bloody images)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Kane Parsons\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Will Soodik\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Kane Parsons and Edo Van Breemen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jeremy Cox\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 29, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, Lukita Maxwell.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s been a little over 12 hours since I watched Backrooms<\/strong> and I\u2019m still attempting to wrap my mind around it all. I\u2019ll grant that I\u2019m at a disadvantage not having seen the popular webseries on which it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The story behind Backrooms<\/strong> 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\u2019s pretty good as far as feature film debuts go.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Somebody mentioned beforehand that Backrooms<\/strong> would be a found-footage movie. You all know how I feel about those. Well, here\u2019s some more good news. It\u2019s 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\u2019s nothing usual, normal or traditional about Backrooms<\/strong>. It doesn\u2019t 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\u2019s what Parsons is going for here, he hits the nail right on the head.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Set 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\u2019s 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\u2019s no stranger to trauma having been raised by a mentally ill mother. She sees right through the man\u2019s BS, but doesn\u2019t call him out on it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0One 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\u2019s a bizarre series of liminal spaces, empty rooms with poorly created furniture and something else, an evil monstrous something. It scares him yet he\u2019s intrigued enough to keep going back to explore further. All the while, he\u2019s being observed (via camera) by a white-coated guy (Duplass, The Morning Show) from a sinister corporation.<\/p>\n

\u00a0One thing about Backrooms<\/strong> I can say with absolute certainty; it\u2019s going to baffle the f*** out of anybody over the age of 35. They\u2019re 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\u2019t, 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 \u201992. 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 \u201901). I loved the weird and surreal vibe of the movie. I feel the same about Backrooms<\/strong>. It\u2019s 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\u2019s one of the more interesting movies I\u2019ve seen in a long time.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Backrooms<\/strong> isn\u2019t a horror movie in the sense that it\u2019s filled with \u201cBOO!\u201d scenes. It\u2019s the other kind, the kind that unsettles the viewer by not explaining what\u2019s 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\u2019t come out. You know a terrible fate awaits Clark\u2019s 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\u2019s the sign of an effective horror film.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Ejiofor does a fine job as Clark, the not very heroic protagonist who refuses to own his personal issues. He\u2019s 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\u2019s the baggage she brings with her when she goes to look for Clark in the Backrooms where she\u2019ll be forced to confront demons both literal and figurative.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Parsons, 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\u2019s 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 <\/strong>with a sense of empty, endless unease. The movie\u2019s artistic aspects more than make up for any narrative shortcomings.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Ultimately, Backrooms<\/strong> leaves the viewer with more questions than answers. If it does well and I\u2019m 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\u2019s a world I look forward to exploring further.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Backrooms (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A24\/Sci-Fi-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 110 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, some violent content\/bloody images)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Kane Parsons\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Will Soodik\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Kane Parsons and Edo Van Breemen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jeremy Cox\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 29, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, Lukita Maxwell. Rating: *** \u00a0It\u2019s been a little over 12 hours […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14528,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-now-playing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Backrooms-POSTER.jpg?fit=620%2C918&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14527"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14531,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14527\/revisions\/14531"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}