Courtney Howard // Film Critic
BACKROOMS
Rated R, 1 hour and 50 minutes
Directed by: Kane Parsons
Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Finn Bennett, Lukita Maxwell, Mark Duplass, Ember Ambrose
On paper, the basis for Zane Parsons’ YouTube sensation – now turned burgeoning big screen phenomenon – BACKROOMS doesn’t seem particularly terrifying. The found footage chronicles of someone with an old school camcorder exploring an infinite maze of sulfur yellow rooms hidden beyond a building’s walls sound frightening only to those scared of seeing their own shadows. And yet, the wunderkind auteur’s execution of hair-raising, leap-in-the-air scares and edge-of-your-seat suspense is truly remarkable. We anxiously attempt to anticipate what’s lurking around every corner, hidden in the depths of dark corridors, and on the other side of oddly-sized doors. But nothing can prepare us for what, or sometimes who, awaits. His cinematic adaptation shrewdly expands the world he created, delivering a brilliant, nightmarish vision that’s beautifully claustrophobic, pulse-pounding and freaky AF. It’s a trip.
After a creepy cold open re-introduces us to the eerie, titular liminal space, paying homage to the origins of Parsons’ project, our journey begins. Angst-riddled Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is going through a tough time in his middle age. He feels like a failure. He’s recently separated from a nagging wife, boozing way too much and living out of the middling Santa Clara Valley furniture store he owns and is struggling to maintain. He’s also in therapy with Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve), a popular self-help author still wrestling with childhood trauma as a survivor of her agoraphobic mother’s mental illness, who urges him to break free of his negative patterns of anger and resentment in order to live a happier life.
After a few freak occurrences at his flailing business, Clark unwittingly takes his therapist’s advice to heart by stumbling into a new pathway, “no-clipping” (a video game term for someone phasing through a solid surface) through a wall in the basement. This invisible portal transports him to a seemingly vacant labyrinth of wallpapered rooms, populated by piles of furniture and other random objects either left behind or lodged haphazardly into walls and floors. He quickly becomes obsessed, visiting it nightly and mapping out the area, which, according to him, continues to multiply its square footage. However, when he and employees Kat (Lukita Maxwell) and Bobby (Finn Bennett) go missing while on a backrooms expedition, Mary decides to investigate the anomaly for herself. Nerve-jangling hijinks and havoc ensue.
Parsons and screenwriter Will Soodik set their TWILIGHT ZONE-ish tale in the early 90s to give things a low-fi, analogue vibe, from the souring synth-forward score (composed by Parsons and Edo Van Breemen) to the period-specific home furnishings. That said, they’re not hamstrung by the era, and aren’t too strict about the fine detailing. It plays more as a familiar echo of an echo of those years, which is delightfully in sync with the uncanny ethos of the original property. While Mica Kayde’s costumes pull from the less pronounced suburban wardrobes of the time, the hair and makeup design teams’ work virtually ignores those trends, favoring ultra-minimalist looks instead.
The filmmakers clearly value simplicity as they keep the mythos streamlined, though containing a mashup of elements from body, supernatural, psychological and found-footage horror subgenres. The internal mechanics stay consistent with Parsons’ well-established series of shorts, advancing the continuity of the universe without succumbing to any lore bloat. There are some questions that are answered – particularly those concerning Async Institute’s slippery researcher Phil (Mark Duplass, who has the tough job of making an exposition dump function to great effect) – and many more that are decidedly not. The magic is that the unanswered questions don’t frustrate the audience. Parsons and Soodik’s (literal) set pieces are dread-fueled sequences walking us through the labyrinth-like backrooms, cleverly conceptualizing how to tap into our shared fears, how to effectively conjure tension and when to surprise us with the unexpected horrors of it all.
No back room is the same as the next, despite an omnipresent uniformity in the aesthetic and atmospheric pull of the environments. When the adventurers push the boundaries and wander into uncharted territory is when things begin ramping up. It’s like M.C. Escher meets Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland as interpreted by David Lynch. Eugenio Battaglia’s sound design earns top marks as he creates an expansive and unsettling soundscape built on a foundation of the ambient buzz of fluorescent lights. Visual effects work blends impeccably into the mayhem, augmenting terror. Danny Vermette’s production design is as much of a superstar headliner as the picture’s Oscar-nominated leads. He plays with perspective, deals in a dream-like logic and adds a textural, tactile nature to the uncanny chambers. Inanimate objects take on new roles, causing us to deduce those items’ pertinence to these rather sinister spaces. Reader, never have piles of clothes haunted me before (I mean, besides my own laundry pile).
There’s rich, multi-dimensional internality to the two lead characters. The psychology behind their motivations and actions is never in question. Themes of forgiveness, resilience, survival and apathy are channeled with wit, restraint and smarts. Ejiofor delivers dynamic depth with his role, fusing together vulnerability, grief and bitterness so we empathize with Clark’s wrong-headed coping mechanisms. Reinsve instills Mary with a nuanced sense of tenacity, curiosity and courage, rebelling against victimhood by confronting her woes. The talisman of her cement handprint from childhood is powerful symbolism, utilized during a climactic callback. In terms of the supporting players, Bennett and Maxwell are allotted solid Movie Moments, not only as the voices of reason, but also as prey to the madness.
BACKROOMS serves to unnerve with its spooky haunts. It’s soaked in anxiety and dread that overwhelm our senses, specifically in the latter half, and it all leads to a jaw-dropping conclusion. Its Still Life entities are accompanied by gut-wrenching unease upon their inevitable introduction. Deeper subterranean levels of mind-blowing revelations are bound to appear as this is built for multiple viewings. Ingenious and disturbingly affecting, we can only hope Parsons, as a modernist architect of panic attacks, will be able to continue to world-build in potential future offerings.
Grade: A
BACKROOMS will release in theaters on May 29.
