'Backrooms' film review: Liminal space overwhelms even the biggest of screens
A meme from the bowels of 4chan has evolved into the haunting, overwhelming and unsettling psychological horror 'Backrooms' (opening in theaters nationwide May 29).
In short: After a therapist's patient (Chiwetel Ejiofor) disappears into a dimension beyond reality, she (Renate Reinsve) must venture into the unknown to save him. Mark Duplass also stars.
A24's latest flick ... is based on internet horror story told and retold in the darkest corners of the internet, specifically 4chan. Without getting distracted in explaining the Backrooms internet lore, this review will answer two questions: how does this 'Backrooms' film stand up as a modern horror film and how well does it adapt this 4chan creepypasta into a big screen film starring two Academy Award-nominated actors?
Horror typically pits a protagonist against some antagonist, usually one with murderous intent - but the setting is rarely more than just a backdrop. With 'Backrooms,' however, the titualar setting itself is the star of the movie and the threat, albeit a disorienting, unsettling threat without any immediate, overt menace. The sickly yellow tinged walls are offputting but don't ring any alarms at first. The halls and corridors almost seem familiar, reminiscent of drab office spaces. If darkness illicits feelings of fear, the nearly blindingly bright UV lights illuminate everything in the backrooms, as if to silently assuage anxieties. Then there's the persistent undercurrent wherein anyone dropped into the Backrooms feels alone - even if they don't feel like they're alone. Even those who feel this film is too distant or esoteric cannot deny this film's arresting cinematography and overwhelming production design.
'Backrooms' taps into the very essence of the original 2019 image which inspired the creepypasta. This is a film where everything just feels 'off.' Everything about the Backrooms-lore is about the texture and feel of the haunting hallways - rooms that are simultaneously familiar and alien. Even the real world parts of 'Backrooms' hum with an odd uniformity - suburban neighborhoods with street after street of identical Fisher Price homes and a furniture store indistinguishable from the rest of the businesses in the nondescript strip mall.
Put in its simplest terms, the Backrooms phenomenon can be crudedly summed up as "an eerie photo that the terminally online created a deep internet lore around" - so the obvious question would be: how does A24 turn a 4chan post into a fully-fleshed out film? And the answer to that is: Kane Parsons, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve.
Writer-director Kane Parsons is aware that a full-length feature film could not persist alone on the energy of dropping a group of twentysomethings into the Backrooms and just watching them suffer for two hours. That worked for one of Parsons' first Backrooms short movies posted to YouTube years ago, but it wouldn't work for a feature. Parsons, in his feature-directorial debut, brings with him a specific familiarity of the Backrooms - one that respects the daunting immensity of their apparent infinity and the profound eeriness that constantly keeps the characters and audience just off balance.
'Backrooms' reflects the creepypasta’s tonal primal fear of isolation and being hunted, with the added psycho-horror of loneliness and the burden of warped memories. Reinsve and Ejiofor play a psychiatrist and her patient - each are haunted by lingerine memories and frustrated by life's tribulations. Both incredible performers delicately and intricately craft characters who survive day-to-day in their mundane lives and bring their psychological baggage into the Backrooms. The script is filled with quiet spaces and sparse dialogue, trusting Reinsve and Ejiofor to make subtle emotional choices in their performances.
Backrooms-purists looking for an all-encompassing movie that includes every bit of tumblr or video game lore might be a bit disappointed - but this is a film that best represents the 4chan post that started it all: simply a picture of an empty space, captioned with the threat of infinity and danger.
Audiences should not expect a script that neatly wraps up all the hows and whys up in a nice bow or spoonfeeds some easily disgestible explination of where the Backrooms come from - the ambiguity is the point. The expansive, seemingly endless maze seems to exist without reason. The Backrooms, as a concept, is rooted in the lizard brain's disturbed response to the premise of something familiar, unending, isolating ... with the undercurrent that something else is watching and waiting. 'Backrooms' taps into the sense of hightened anxiety and nerves birthed from a disorienting, seemingly banal picture posted in 4chan.
Final verdict: Director Kane Parsons fundamentally understands the allure of the Backrooms internet lore. Co-leads Reinsve and Ejiofor inject wounded humanity into a maze apparently devoid of humans. This is an essential film of 2026.
Score: 4/5
'Backrooms' opens in theaters nationwide May 29. This psychological horror has a runtime of 110 minutes and is rated R for language and some violent content/bloody images.
