I saw so much hype around this movie and dual discourse with Obsession due to their production similarities. Mainly just being their two young directors that seem to be bringing something fresh to Hollywood. It’s funny because I never saw a single trailer for Obsession, only people online singing its praises. As opposed to this, I constantly saw trailers for this movie on TV and online, and I was pretty excited for it. I know the bare minimum about the backrooms and the liminal horror intrigues me more than scares me, but the trailers sold me. There are some genuinely fantastic aspects about this movie, and there are some meh things about it. It rounded out to be a solid film that I think had more potential than was realized, but it’s still so different than anything else that I would still call it a must-watch for a horror fan.
I really like the setup in this movie. Clark is a struggling man in life, in general, who runs a furniture store and finds a portal to the backrooms. These weird liminal spaces on the lower floor of his store. It’s the first half of this movie that establishes Clark and sees him exploring these what feel like random but also familiar rooms that seem to go on forever. And they’re like the real world but just not quite. This is where the movie shines. There’s constant tension, a lingering mystery of what this place is, where is it, how is it possible, and what is this creature that lives inside these walls. Also, he’s being watched, so who else knows about it, and how much do they know? There’s also this sense of wonder and fulfillment from Clark as he seems to finally be able to live a part of his dream. The second chunk of the movie focuses more on the other main character, who just isn’t as strong as Clark, both writing and acting wise and the movie commits the grave sin of showing the monster, and it just loses all its luster. The second half just falls very flat for me.
Clark is a really interesting character, though. A selfish man who is down on his luck finds this insane place, which really ends up sparking something in him. His being a scholared architecht was the perfect story setup as to why he’s so curious and giddy about mapping the backrooms out. And his severe character flaws really start to rear their heads in subtle ways. The movie did a great job making me agree with a lot of what he was saying and his anger early on, but by showing his actions/inactions and later how his character turns out, it really made me go Oh, this is how selfish people operate. Nothing is their fault; it’s always someone else’s. And the backrooms acted like his escape. The actor was great, the character was great. He was really the highlight character of this movie.
Mary, on the other hand, was just eh. Even though her flashbacks are woven throughout the movie leading up to when she becomes the main focus, I can’t help but feel like this movie would lose nothing if she wasn’t involved at all. I get the metaphor or parallels they were drawing between her and her mother’s upbringing and the backrooms, but I think they get that across regardless without that entire arc. I also don’t think her performance was particularly good either. It was very dry and detached in a way that didn’t work. Especially compared to how much character, not even just Clark but pretty much all the other side characters, had. Her side of the story and section of the movie is easily the weakest part.
I have come to really appreciate camera work as much as I do animation (which also involves camera work but you know). The way this movie is shot is absolutely terrifying. As I said, liminal horror has literally done nothing for me until the opening scene of this movie. The first person pov really sets the stage for what’s to come, and when we eventually get Clark and Mary exploring the backrooms, the variety of shots really sell how surreal and maze-like this place is. How open and endless but constricting it feels. It is as amazing as it is terrifying. Not to mention the (what I’m assuming) practical sets that look so amazing and add to this surrealistic and sometimes hellish feeling environment. I was amazed, and the dreamy music adds so much. From a purely visual standpoint, this is a phenomenal-looking movie.
So yeah, The Backrooms is solid. I think it could’ve been a lot better, but for what we have, it’s solid. For another debut director, this was fantastically shot. Like, coming into this, I wasn’t scared of this type of horror, but man did this movie just chill me to the bone sometimes. It’s so uncanny; I loved it. I also fell in love with the idea of the backrooms in general. I think this concept/series has so much potential going forward, and I’m hoping it gets a sequel.
The Backrooms 7/10
