For anyone who has spent time wandering through Kane Parsons’ original Backrooms videos on YouTube, it was immediately clear that the young filmmaker possessed a remarkably intuitive understanding of how to work the camera.
Long before A24 handed him the keys to a feature film, Parsons had already demonstrated an uncanny ability to turn seemingly innocuous things like empty hallways, buzzing fluorescent lights, and impossible architecture into some of the most unsettling imagery on the internet.
His Backrooms saga eventually expanded into a surprisingly somewhat dense mythology spanning nearly three hours of footage, but its greatest strength was always its atmosphere. It understood that the things lurking just outside the frame are often far scarier than anything fully revealed or explained.
The inevitable question surrounding Backrooms the movie, then, was whether that terror could survive the transition to a more traditional narrative. The answer is both yes and no.
Set in 1990, the film follows Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a failed architect who now owns a struggling furniture store while quietly nursing the wounds of a collapsing marriage. Strange occurrences begin to plague the building. Lights flicker unpredictably. Power surges come and go. Objects disappear without explanation. Eventually Clark discovers a doorway that should not exist, leading him into the endless labyrinth known as the Backrooms. When he vanishes inside, his therapist Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve) finds herself drawn into the mystery as she begins to search for him.
Parsons wastes little time reminding audiences why his original work became such a phenomenon. The opening sequence immediately drops viewers into a found-footage nightmare involving a hazmat-suited employee already trapped within the maze-like dimension. It is a fantastic introduction, delivering exactly the kind of dread fans have been hoping for up on the big screen.
The Backrooms themselves remain a stunning creation, an impossible space that somehow always makes visual sense despite operating on dream logic. Endless hallways fold into one another. Rooms seem to rearrange themselves. Familiar architecture becomes completely alien.
Just as important as the visuals is the sound design. The constant hum of fluorescent lighting becomes its own form of psychological torture. Every distant metallic clang, every distorted echo, every horrifying creature shriek feels carefully designed to send a chill down your spine. The entities themselves are used sparingly, and wisely. Parsons understands that a brief glimpse of something impossible is often more effective than a lengthy reveal. Their bizarre forms and horrific wailing noises linger in your mind long after they disappear from view.
The film’s strongest stretch arrives when Clark first begins exploring the Backrooms. Cinematographer Jeremy Cox (Keeper) moves with deliberate patience, allowing tension to build naturally. A sequence where Clark recruits his young employees Bobby (Finn Bennett) and Kat (Lukita Maxwell) to help map the dimension using ropes, tape, and a camcorder captures the exact spirit that made the original videos so compelling. It’s ordinary people stumbling into something far beyond their comprehension, and when one of the entities finally emerges, the resulting chaos is genuinely nerve-rattling.
What ultimately separates the feature from the web series, however, is its desire to become a character-driven story. Clark and Mary are both lonely people trapped in emotional limbo. Clark sleeps at his store and remains consumed by professional and personal failures. Mary carries lingering trauma from an unusual childhood marked by a mentally ill mother and an upbringing defined by isolation. The film repeatedly suggests that the Backrooms function as a manifestation of the mind itself; a never-ending maze of memories, regrets, and fears.
That thematic approach leads to some interesting material, particularly during the film’s quieter moments. It gives the story a surprisingly emotional center and helps distinguish the movie from being nothing more than a collection of scary hallways and frightening noises. At the same time, the narrative focus occasionally works against the film. The greater mythology remains largely confined to the edges of the story for most of the runtime, which is a smart decision. Instead, the inner psyches of our characters' become the foreground, to varying results of effectiveness.
Still, even when the story occasionally struggles to fully satisfy, Parsons’ control of atmosphere never wavers. The film builds toward a surprisingly intimate emotional climax before unleashing one final burst of horror with an exhilarating final chase through the ever-shifting corridors of the Backrooms. By that point, the sheer craftsmanship on display is impossible to deny.
Backrooms may not entirely surpass the source material that inspired it. In truth, I would still recommend Parsons’ original YouTube series first. Those videos remain some of the most effective examples of found-footage horror created in the last decade. Yet as a feature debut, this is an undeniably impressive achievement. Kane Parsons proves that his talents extend far beyond internet virality, delivering a horror film packed with unforgettable imagery, suffocating atmosphere, and several sequences that rank among the genre’s most effective this year. Even when the answers fail to satisfy, the terror of wandering those endless yellow halls remains impossible to shake.
'Backrooms' is now playing in theaters.
