Review of Backrooms
Backrooms (2026) Dir. Kane Parsons
The Backrooms first began as a creepypasta, which is a short piece of narrative fiction typically in the horror genre that’s created by internet users. In 2019, a user on the platform 4Chan uploaded an image to a forum for disquieting images that just feel a little ‘off.’ The image was of a yellow room taken with an old VHS style camera. The room appeared to have randomly placed walls and seemed endless.
From this image, the Backrooms and the concept of liminal spaces emerged. While various users have contributed lore and expanded on theories and details surrounding the Backrooms, including users creating various other liminal spaces that they called “levels” (like the floors of a building), there is no definitive story behind the Backrooms. It’s a space that your imagination can run wild with.
That’s why when I first heard that a film adaption was in the works, I was so excited to see what direction the writers and director would take it in, especially because the director, Kane Parsons, is iconic within the Backrooms fandom for his multiple-part found footage series on YouTube.
The film ‘Backrooms’ is set in the 1990s and follows our protagonist, Clark, who runs a pirate-themed furniture store called Cap’n Clark's Ottoman Empire. Early in the film, we see that Clark is struggling to get customers and is in active therapy for his marital issues. In the midst of his depression, Clark discovers the Backrooms under his store. From there, the film takes us on an incredibly strange journey that’s surprisingly centered on Clark, rather than the Backrooms themselves.
The most important part of any game or piece of media involving the Backrooms and liminal spaces is the space itself. Parsons did a fantastic job in recreating the eerie feel of the Backrooms. The team even went as far as actually building a set for it, rather than using CGI. The film adopts the use of wide angles and a fish eye lens to make the space feel larger and more vast, highlighting the endless and distorted nature of liminal spaces. Given the way ‘Backrooms’ was filmed, you would assume that the Backrooms would act as the main focal point of the narrative.
That’s why the plot direction and dialogue really weakened this film. The plot was heavily centered on Clark’s declining mental health, with the Backrooms acting as more of a setting for his mental crisis than its own entity. Throughout the film, I didn’t feel as though there was any real threat to Clark. There are various scenes alluding to something ominous living within the Backrooms, but somehow this threat never seems to emerge, and when you finally think it has, it isn’t what you expect at all.
In the first scene, the film sets itself up to be a found footage film, and had it stayed in that direction, this review might be more positive. What the filmmakers failed to portray is that the Backrooms itself is the main character. Having a physical space be the main character makes following traditional film conventions a little more difficult, which I understand. That’s why taking a found footage approach would have been more appropriate for this style of horror. Perhaps Parsons believed he was taking the approach of a human main character losing their sanity in an attempt to understand what the Backrooms are and how they operate, but we just don’t get to see that intention anywhere in the film.
Instead, we see a man with a failing business, alcoholism, and resentment towards his wife have a mental breakdown in a liminal space that he can somehow leave and re-enter whenever he pleases. This film mechanic particularly bothered me, as Clark’s ability to leave and re-enter the Backrooms at will completely ruins the nature of liminal spaces. What makes them so horrifying in previous lore is that once you enter, you can’t find your way out. There’s high stakes, tension, and something always lurking just outside of view.
This film unfortunately failed to stay true to the nature of the Backrooms. The plot felt lazy and irrelevant, and many key elements that fans had created for the Backrooms since 2019 were pushed to the wayside. Instead of adapting one of the most unique creepypastas out there into a film, the writers instead chose to write a separate film that featured the Backrooms instead.
★★
2 / 5
Angelique Ritter
