Coming along so soon after the breakout success of Obsession, Backrooms is the most recent low-budget horror movie to be embraced by those claiming that the model for successful cinema releases is changing. That's a good thing, and I'm always happy to see horror once again being hailed for what it can do to the landscape of cinema (remember . . . the horror genre has saved various pockets of cinema on multiple occasions). Backrooms isn't great though, despite the profit it has made.
Everyone knows the origin story by now. Kane Parsons, director of this, spent some time making short films online that explored the backrooms, spaces just behind the veil of our own reality that are abandoned and eerily silent. Until, more worryingly, they maybe don't seem so abandoned and silent. Either way, liminal spaces are a great fit for horror.
This particular story has Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) finding some backrooms in a space behind his furniture store. This is just another problem for Clark, who is trying to process the failure of his marriage and his alcoholism with a therapist, Mary (Renate Reinsve). It could also become a problem for young Kat (Lukita Maxwell) and Bobby (Finn Bennett), two youngsters who Clark ropes in to helping him explore this strange and unnerving new environment.
The look and feel of Backrooms is the big plus. This is a film designed to unsettle and confuse viewers, a film that would have benefited from a narrative as strange and upsetting as the environments on display. Unfortunately, writer Will Soodik either misunderstands the main appeal of the concept or just doesn't have enough faith in how strong it is. This leads to him instead offering the kind of explanation and clumsy psychological insight that I can't imagine impressing those who have been a fan of Parsons for the past few years.
Ejiofor and Reinsve are both great choices for the lead roles, but neither is given the kind of material they can really sink their teeth into. They certainly help to sell the dialogue, but I wish they'd been allowed to do more. All of their main scenes feel incredibly basic, as if they were asked to work with placeholder dialogue that would be greatly improved later in the process, and the resolution is disappointing, at best, and non-existent if you're not willing to grasp on to the smallest grace note. As for both Maxwell and Bennett, neither are given enough to do, which is also a great shame. Mark Duplass also stars in a supporting role, but I cannot separate his character from another major weakness in the screenplay, which means I didn't appreciate his performance here at all.
There are moments here that work. The production design is impressive, as is the idea at the heart of it. Sadly, and in a way that is horribly ironic, what you get to see feels like just a hint of what you might want to see. Backrooms doesn't actually spend anywhere close to enough time pulling viewers into the titular spaces. It just presents one glimpse after another of anomalies that hint at a much better film hidden away behind this one.
5/10
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