Kane Parsons “Backrooms” (2026)
Originally an Internet phenomenon that appeared on the imageboard website 4chan in 2019, and then branching into videogames and Youtube channels of short films, the Backrooms is an urban legend whose theme is liminal spaces, expressed as extra-dimensional labyrinthine complexes of empty rooms accessed by a portal linked to the real world. In 2022, US filmmaker / Youtuber Kane Parsons created a series of short films for Youtube based on the Backrooms concept, in which a secret organisation called the Async Research Institute investigates a network of underground empty office spaces. One thing led to another, Parsons was approached by film studios keen on adapting his series to the big screen, and the result is … “Backrooms”, a full-length science fiction / psychological horror film directed by none other than Parsons himself, his debut as a movie director. The film follows on from the Youtube series – it features representatives from the Async Research Institute – but viewers do not need to be familiar with the web series to be able to follow the film.
The plot revolves around two characters, Clark and Dr Mary Kline, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve respectively. Aspiring architect Clark, struggling with a drinking problem and reeling from his recent divorce, is having problems making ends meet running a discount furniture store in a shopping mall that has seen better times, located in a Californian town that is also clearly in economic decline. Psychology therapist Dr Kline has been treating Clark for some time. What Clark does not yet know – but viewers see, in flashbacks – is that Mary herself is working through past childhood traumas related to an abusive, agoraphobic mother and the demolition of the home where she spent her early years. Trying to understand his invoices and electricity bills, Clark hires an electrician to check the store’s electrical circuits – the electrician discovers three breaker switches installed at odd angles on the circuit board that do not connect to the store network.
One evening, Clark investigates a strange disturbance in the store’s basement and falls through a wall into a huge, sprawling labyrinth of interconnected yellow rooms and corridors, some of which are filled with strangely distorted furniture. After exploring these rooms, he narrowly escapes pursuit by an unseen entity, and tries to enlist Mary’s help. Mary refuses so Clark recruits store employees Bobby and Kat (Finn Bennett and Lukita Maxwell) to help investigate the Backrooms and film what they discover. During their investigations, the three are ambushed, Bobby is killed by an invisible enemy, and the others are lost in a series of bizarre and disordered rooms and spaces.
After receiving an odd phone call from Clark, Mary decides to investigate his claims about the Backrooms and herself passes through the portal into the labyrinth. From this point on, the plot becomes ever more unsettling and grotesque, as Clark is revealed to be an unpleasant anti-hero and Mary must do all she can to escape him and a monstrous animated mannequin, made to resemble the furniture store’s pirate mascot, and find her way out of the Backrooms.
The sketchy plot (which goes awry in the film’s second half) allows Ejiofor and Reinsve much scope to flesh out their characters. Ejiofor in particular plays a desperate Clark on the verge of breakdown, a man resentful of what Fate has dished out to him but unwilling to acknowledge his role and responsibility for past failures. As the film progresses, we see that Clark has no qualms about enlisting Bobby and Kat in a foolhardy and ultimately dangerous endeavour that ends in their deaths. Mary initially appears rather timid but when forced to fight for her life she discovers an inner steel that saves her from the marauding mannequin. Other cast members are on the screen for very short periods, and they do fine with what they are given – but the film depends heavily on Ejiofor and Reinsve to carry the film’s emotional heart and its themes of trauma, loss and grieving, memory, psychological denial and releasing oneself from old mental and emotional patterns.
The set designs, a mix of actual physical stage sets and 3D software, are stunning if eerie to experience and immerse oneself in, with some rooms having slanted walls or stairs that appear to meet doors at strange angles, in keeping with a dimension that appears to represent collective human subconscious, in which the memories of all who enter are made manifest in physical form, albeit distorted in some way. (Another interpretation is that the Backrooms are the construction of unseen alien beings, unknown even to the Async Research Institute, who attempt to replicate what they sense and know of human society.) Whatever the Backrooms actually are, they – or something in them – seem keen on keeping Clark and Mary as hostages, to harvest their memories, thoughts – and ultimately their traumas and grudges – for their own benefit and use, which are never explained. For a young director working on his film debut, Parsons handles pacing and creating an uneasy, queasy atmosphere very well, never having to rely on overused techniques like jump cuts to generate horror.
The film’s conclusion is just as unsettling as its plot – it introduces a new character, Phil (Mark Duplass) – and most audiences will be unhappy that the film appears open-ended. What happens to Mary next is unknown or perhaps waiting for a sequel. Later parts of the film tend to drag once the basic concept behind the Backrooms is clear, with the plot falling into a stereotyped horror film structure of the lone hero or heroine having to fight his/her way out of a potential death-trap and at the same time defeat the monster. The film is best seen as an art-horror film meditation on existence and humanity’s attempts to preserve memory, and the meanings that go with memory, in an indifferent universe.