Backrooms

 

This review may contain spoilers!

Backrooms follows Clark, a furniture outlet store owner who discovers a secret entrance into a mysterious liminal space within his store. This unusual space goes on infinitely and holds dark secrets within. Backrooms is directed by Kane Parsons, who developed the Backrooms internet mythology into a famous YouTube web series.

Everything that really works for this horror feature is all on display in that first half. The Backrooms starts off incredibly strong, with some very desolate and desperate characters searching for more than what they are. Clark is a miserable furniture store owner who holds a lot of contempt for the wife who left him and who can't reconcile that he hasn't achieved his dreams. He tries to avail himself through therapy, where the mask of his inner rage occasionally slips. But having no other outlet, Clark desperately staggers through a life spent propping up a failing business. His discovery of this other place, these backrooms, is an absolutely thrilling tilt in the story. Clark's wonder is our own, as he goes further and grows in fascination, the audience becomes more tense. You can't help but wait for that other shoe to drop, for some darker presence to lash out at him. Clark's obsession sees him continuing to risk the backrooms, drawn further and further into this mysterious other place. He risks the lives of his employees and himself; everything is consumed by this newfound purpose. By the end of the feature, we see Clark as a wretched figure, unable to grow from his own narcissism and living in the backrooms to feel a sense of control in this space.

This is a film that is completely dedicated to its design. The way this feature is shot is really powerful. Kane Parsons manages to capture everyday spaces and pieces of urban architecture and make them compelling moments in a frame. I loved the claustrophobia generated in the practical set of the backrooms; that whole environment transported me. The score is a real unsettling piece of ambience; it sinks into you slowly and draws forth a feeling of unease.

Renate Reinsve, who played Mary, is quite good at portraying a stoic, professional therapist; Reinsve's final confrontation with Ejiofor contrasted with their therapy sessions are some excellent examples of great acting.

However, the best performance came from Chiwetel Ejiofor, who played Clark. Ejiofor is really fantastic at finding a character and bringing them right down to Earth. Clark isn't always the most likable figure, nor is he reprehensible at first. This is a deeply flawed individual, with a lot of rage and hurt. He is alone in life and completely dejected over the idea that this is the quality of his life. It's a figure sculpted to be tragic; he can fix himself, but he refuses to do so. Watching Ejiofor play to the wonder and fear of the backrooms was quite thrilling. Yet, it's Clark's final scenes where Ejiofor gets to unmask the darkness at Clark's centre that is most unsettling. It's a difficult character journey to watch, to see Ejiofor grow rotten, but it is masterfully played.

It's hard to tell a good story from beginning to end, especially one overladen with pre-existing lore and expectation. What do you take with you? What will your average movie-going audience relate to? Seeing Osgood Perkins' producing credit tacked onto this was probably warning enough that this would walk off the beaten path at some point. At the halfway point of the feature, we lose sight of Clark, leaving his story behind for his therapist, Mary. This is a character we've gotten glancing pieces of throughout the film. Mary has her own horrific backstory, and we get it randomly littered throughout. It's unusual in delivery and often interrupts the pacing rather than adding to the flow of the narrative. The film doesn't care if Mary works as the new protagonist; she is unceremoniously dumped with a baton to lead the feature. She then proceeds to get to the backrooms in quite a clunky way, all while the audience is left trying to puzzle out the time disparity that has taken place. Clark's descent into madness is well performed by Ejiofor, but it is a massive character leap. His madness feels sudden, not really earned by the story. This is a common issue with Backrooms; it surges forward in pacing all the time. The fact that the final half descends into a creature feature is a disappointment. It renders what was a great piece of horror into a pretty simplistic run-of-the-mill scare that we see from the big studios all the time. The monster, just being a raging, yet pathetic version of Clark's inner demons, felt quite heavy-handed. The clandestine corporation that lurked throughout the feature was like a brick to the structure of the film. A shadowy corporation just sucked the air out of the personal journey of these characters. Ending the film on Mary being interviewed by Phil was the perfect off-note to cut to the credits on.

The pirate Clark monster we get in the final act is a complete shambolic mess. It's only particularly frightening when things descend into jump scares. I cannot begin to describe how hilarious and average the design of this thing is. It kills the potential of Backrooms almost exclusively.

Mark Duplass, who played Phil, really kills the ending of the feature; Duplass' tired interview completely collapses any sensation of excitement remaining. Finn Bennett and Lukita Maxwell, who played Bobby and Kat respectively, don't ever really get to develop into more than two-dimensional characters; these young performers are merely here for a fatality.

Maybe we just leave this one in the back. I would give Backrooms a 4.5/10