If I had a dollar for every time I saw a horror movie about the existential terror of seemingly mundane liminal spaces based on digital media, I’d have two dollars. Which ain’t much, but it’s weird that it happened twice–and over the span of a couple of months, too.
First we had the Japanese video game adaptation Exit 8, which sees a hapless everyman trapped in seemingly infinite, labyrinthine subway station tunnels. Now we have Backrooms, which sees…well, you’ll never guess.
How to watch Backrooms in Australia
Backrooms is now available for digital rent or purchase in Australia at all the usual vendors.
What is Backrooms about?
Written and directed by Kane Parsons, Backrooms is adapted from his own series of unsettling web shorts, which is in turn based on the viral creepypasta that began in the fetid depths of the internet cesspool that is 4chan, in 2019, before spilling its banks.
The general gist is that there exists certain forgotten spaces that connect our world with an uncanny and seemingly infinite dimension of disused rooms and corridors, accessible by “no-clipping” out of reality. The problem – and it’s a big one –is that there are… things…lurking in there. When furniture store owner Clark disappears after telling his therapist that he’s found a doorway to such a place, she makes the arguably unwise decision to try and find him in there. Good luck!
The cast of Backrooms
Chiwetel Ejiofor is furniture store owner Clark, Renate Reinsve is his as-yet-unnamed therapist, with Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, Lukita Maxwell, and Avan Jogia in support.
Backrooms trailer
Why we’re excited about Backrooms
The whole Backrooms phenomenon is a mood piece, and a very effective one; go check out Parsons’ original shorts for evidence. The question is whether that mood – and the narrative – can be sustained for feature length. As some punters have observed, the more lore you know about the concept, the less unsettling it becomes. But hey: it sure looks the business.