Backrooms

I like my horror movies in one of two flavors: deep, rich stories with complex characters and a compelling narrative, or, in lieu of all that, a no-holds-barred roller coaster of carnage. Yes, there can be nuances and crossover, and yes, this is a bit of an over-simplification for illustration purposes, but the bottom line is simple: either make me think or make me white-knuckle the sofa. What I do not want, what I cannot stand, is the movie that does neither. The movie that doesn't just rely on vibes, but depends on them like a life-saving medication. Atmosphere is an ingredient in movie-making, it isn't the whole damned thing. If you can't populate that atmosphere with actual stuff, all you've got are pretty visuals. And that's where Backrooms lands for me. I'll give Kane Parsons credit for this being an undiluted representation of his vision. The visual design of Backrooms holds nothing back in pulling off the concept of the horrors of liminal spaces. Sure, I've seen plants and furniture half-stuck in walls and floors in every RPG Bethesda has put out in the last 20 years, but Parsons still uses it to good effect in actualizing the unnerving geometry of Backrooms. Parsons would make a fantastic set designer, visual artist, and/or cinematographer, But as a storyteller, he is absolute toilet water. Backrooms doesn't have characters, it has corporealized Twitter bios. Renate Reinsve plays Mary, a therapist; we know she has trauma from growing up with an agoraphobic mother. We know that the other lead, Clark (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor), is upset about the collapse of his marriage and can't accept his role in it. These are attributes one assigns to a character, sure, but they are not A character. They are the springboard from which one layers on details, expanding and exploring their mental states, their motivations and fears, and how the situation we see them face reflects upon and possibly changes them. Backrooms does none of that. It isn't interested in that. Clark starts off as a clueless, selfish, spiteful ass; his character's only change is admitting all of that, and that change happens entirely off-screen. He is who he is in one scene, and in the next, he admits who he is and says he likes it. There in no attempt at exploring him as a character, seeing him evolve, or how it ties to the extra-dimensional space that grows out of his basement. Mary is even worse; we get her backstory as a child, and that is it. There isn't so much as a hint of change or growth, not even a hinted attempt at it, and certainly no attempt at tying the backrooms and her experiences in them to her character. They are the worst kind of characters; they are chess pieces to be moved about as the plot, as thin as that is, needs them to be. They don't drive anything, their decisions don't push anything, they don't do anything. They live to react and to be pushed around. Which is impressive given the story has less weight than a feather on the moon. For two-thirds of the movie, the story is "miserable jerk finds supernatural hallways". Backrooms has precisely as much plot as necessary to justify what is, essentially, a Zillow tour of an office building from a funhouse mirror. That is, until the third act, where Parsons shoots the pendulum with a cannon and starts introducing plot info the movie simply isn't strong enough to handle. Suddenly, the movie goes from having nothing to put on its flimsy hanger to having too much, but the information is gives is messy and poorly thought out and inspires more questions that send the movie teetering over the edge. There's a place for ambiguity in movies. Phantasm does it well; it answers some questions, raises others, but gives you enough so that either your imagination fills in gaps, or you can draw logical inferences. Backrooms can't do that. The answers it provides are so unsatisfactory and so illogical, you start saying "wait, what?" in a quizzical, disapproving way. Even worse is that the last act and its sudden revelations feel ripped from Stranger Things, and seem to exist to set up a sequel, because they sure don't provide narrative closure or even a gentle transition to the end. Backrooms just ... stops. It picks up its toys and goes home ... that is until a FIFTEEN MINUTE POST-CREDIT SEQUENCE that adds nothing to the story. I've never been one for movies that trade story for visuals and characters for vibes. I thought The Neon Demon was hot trash. I find Guillermo del Toro's movies insufferable and vacuous. If you're not going to give me a conveyor belt of lizard-brain stimuli, I expect to be engaged with the characters and their stories. Backrooms cannot handle that. It was not built to handle it. There is an audience for this kind of movie, and for that kind who can enjoy a movie on vibes alone, this might be right up your alley. Kane Parsons set out to make a certain kind of movie, and it does succeed in being that kind of movie. But I am not the audience for that kind of movie. For me, it's little more than the cinematic version of jingling keys or a laser pointer on the wall.