BACKROOMS
Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, and Lukita Maxwell
Director: Kane Parsons
ADRIANO
For the record, I don’t have any relationship with the source material, and I wonder if that played a part in me not understanding what my takeaway was supposed to be watching Backrooms. Debut director Kane Parsons does show his promise behind the camera, and the titular backrooms present fertile ground for atmospheric tension and an intriguing mythology. However, once the film begins to ground itself in a much more psychologically literal interpretation, it becomes clear that most of this is sequel fodder, which resulted in me feeling unsatisfied once the movie was over, despite what worked before.
NICK
Backrooms gets off to a hell of a start with an anxiety-inducing scene, shot entirely in first person. What follows never reaches that level of tension again. As the film transitions into the mysteries behind the backrooms, it hits a lull as it relies too heavily on atmosphere over well-developed storytelling. It reminded me of Channel Zero (also creepypasta based) except that show understood you needed to fill the holes of the lore to create a complete story. With Backrooms, you have a lot of unexplainable and unanswered questions that don’t quite work the same when translated to film. Having said that, I’m intrigued.
