Backrooms

Backrooms is based on the YouTube web series by Kane Parsons who makes his directorial debut. This is my introduction to both Parsons and Backrooms and it probably won’t be the end of my exposure and that’s a good thing.

Parsons has crafted a complex, psychological thriller that is oozing with atmosphere to spare, a story with fittingly twisted sensibilities and performances that keep us invested more than enough to navigate the way through the maze of absurdity.

Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as Clark, a furniture store owner recently divorced who sees his therapist to work out all his problems. Renate Reinsve costars as his therapist Dr. Mary Kline. While the therapist is helping Clark with his inner demons, the therapist herself is struggling with her own past which I won’t reveal.

Clark starts living inside his own store and notices a series of electrical malfunctions and so he checks out the basement which has a hole in a wall and that leads to a dimension of endless spaces that also houses leftover furniture.

Of course when Clark tells his therapist she immediately doesn’t believe him and so he recruits two of his employees to go with him to show her the evidence but it’s just a matter of time before they become victims of the psychotic beings inhabiting the environment.

The movie deserves a lot of credit for taking a cerebral approach to the material instead of making it a relentless gorefest. It takes time for potential and thoughtful dialogue between Clark and his therapist as he discusses the details of the underworld.

Like Obsession, Backrooms is not a one-note thriller. It makes a skillful effort to put its story and characters ahead of violence or jump scares. Parsons and his screenwriter Will Soodik have put together a surreal, hypnotic, mesmerizing movie that has imagery unlike any horror film of recent years.

It’s sort of a cross between Salvador Dali and Stanley Kubrick and if either one were still here, they would applaud and admire the level of craftsmanship on display. Almost every scene in Backrooms looks like a bizarre art installation on an acid trip.

Some of the scenes in the world of Backrooms reminded me of a conversation between a scientist and an audience member taking about if the Earth orbits the sun or vice versa. The audience member says the Earth rests on the back of a giant turtle. The scientist asks what does the turtle rest on and the member says another turtle. The scientist asks the question again and the audience member says it’s just turtles all the way down. That same kind of theory or philosophy applies to the world building of Backrooms.

Parsons may be a revelatory kind of director here who may have much more effective, proficient ways to keep both hardcore fans and curious newbies satisfied with other trips down his elaborate convolutions.