Backrooms (2026)
As the end credits came up on this one, we experienced two separate but equal reactions.....
The first: "What the actual **** did we just watch?"
The second: "We may not understand what the actual **** we just watched, but we're pretty damn sure what we watched......might come close to brilliant."
Co-writer and director Kane Parsons, some kind of YouTube, Tik-Tok wunderkind making his feature film debut, has definitely crafted a film worth thinking about, arguing about and filled to the brim with images that stick with you.
We're well aware that for all of the box office money it's scooping up like a vacuum cleaner, it's leaving plenty of viewers annoyed , confounded and convinced it wasn't worth the ticket price.
We agree to disagree. "Backrooms" more than accomplishes what every horror movie sets out to do, if you get right down to it.......to envelop you in a waking nightmare from which there's no escape.
And what a clever bad dream does young Kane suck you into.......the epitome of what's now referred to as 'liminal horror'......a deceptively bland dreamscape that's part Franz Kafka in its bleak outlook and part artist M.C. Escher in its infinite architecture that appears to go nowhere and somewhere all at the same time.
Right at the start, it's implied that this bizarre alternate universe of endless yellow walled backrooms, one leading to the other, is currently under study and exploration by some unknown scientific corporation......and that it's as dangerous as looking for the Blair Witch or wandering through the 'Nostromo' in 'Alien'.
But our primary lead victim is a very normal down-to-earth (and down and out) everyman. Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) bitter, alcoholic, divorced and a failed architect, is reduced to managing an equally failing strip mall furniture store.
To his stunned disbelief Clark discovers his store's basement level contains a fourth dimensional portal into the weird, maze-like Backroom world. He tries telling his empathetic therapist Mary (Renate Reinsve), who's dealing with her own memories of a fractured childhood......but Mary's empathy doesn't extend to swallowing the sheer lunacy of what Clark's describing.
(And let us stop a moment here to credit the outstanding performances by Ejiofor and Reinsve, whose gifted work further elevates the film......)
As horror fans could easily predict, Clark's recruitment of his two young assistant managers to help explore Backroom-ia (or whatever you want to call it) doesn't go well for any of them. It falls to the vulnerable, incredulous Mary to plunge herself in the hearts of darkness lurking within all those countless interconnected brightly lit rooms, each of them bland yet still terrifying in their stark simplicity.
What's it all mean? Good question.
While the film will supply you with an all too conventional explanation for those jump-suited tech guys we saw lurking about at the beginning, the ultimate mysteries of the Backrooms will not be spelled out for you..........(which would account, we think, for those audience members leaving the film scratching their heads, deeply confused and unsatisfied.)
Like many film pundits, we could start to pontificate on our own personal theories on the film's meaning but chances are, they wouldn't sound any more or less perceptive than anybody else's. But that's the pure excitement and fun of experiencing a film that's willing to challenge you, laying out all its crazy ideas for you to absorb and ponder.
If you're seeing the film or plan to see it, we'd love to here your take on Backrooms, so by all means drop us some thoughts at www.thebeachedqull@gmail.com.
Not everybody may like it, but BQ puts this one among the essential watches for 2026.
4 stars (****).
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