{"id":13668,"date":"2026-05-29T12:28:47","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T19:28:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/?p=13668"},"modified":"2026-05-29T12:29:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T19:29:31","slug":"backrooms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/?p=13668","title":{"rendered":"Backrooms"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The word “creepypasta” is derived from the phrase “copy-paste”. It’s a term for a story (usually horror) collectively written by correspondents (usually anonymous) on some online forum (usually 4chan). Imagine a bunch of kids huddled around a campfire, arguing amongst themselves about the details of a particular ghost story — a creepypasta is the internet-age version of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Backrooms is a creepypasta that started with a photo posted to a 4chan thread in 2019<\/a>. It took another five years to source the photo to an abandoned furniture store in Oshkosh, WI, that was undergoing reconstruction into a hobby store. By that point, the horse had long since escaped the stable and run out clear over the horizon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deranged minds of 4chan had taken that enigmatic photo and built a huge sprawling parallel universe of purgatory from it. A place laid out like a drunken memory of an office building, with dead-end corridors and random doorways and odd angles stretching out to infinity. Where every wall is the same unremarkable pattern in the same piss-yellow shade. Where everything is harshly lit in the persistent low buzz of overhead fluorescent lights. Where the carpet under your feet is slightly damp, filling your nose and throat with a mildew odor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything about the Backrooms is built to be an assault on all the senses. But it’s not aggressively painful, only chronically painful. It’s a liminal space of endless mediocrity, where the monotony breaks your spirit by slow and unyielding force of sheer volume. It’s the white noise underneath reality as we know it, patiently waiting for someone to fall through the cracks of our sane, rational universe and end up trapped forever in this mundane nonsensical nightmare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the central underlying premise of the Backrooms, but it’s worth remembering the very nature of creepypastas. There are multiple variations on the Backrooms, all with the same broad strokes and wildly varying details. Because there is no copyright holder, no primary storyteller, and no one person to say what is or isn’t canon. But Kane Parsons might be the closest there is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parsons came to fame as a YouTuber who spent his high school years on homemade indie short films inspired by the Backrooms. In this way, Parsons singlehandedly did more than probably anyone else to expand and define the lore of the original creepypasta and help it escape the confines of 4chan. If anyone out there is the least bit familiar with the Backrooms, it’s probably thanks to Parsons and his short films in one way or another. (In my case, it was The Stupendium<\/a> who first introduced me to the Backrooms.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the one hand, I’m surprised it took Hollywood this long to try adapting a creepypasta, as they’re public domain by nature and inherently popular with kids. On the other hand, given how sickening and demented creepypastas tend to be (again, it’s fucking 4chan), it’s really not all that surprising to see Hollywood get so squeamish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Properly turning a creepypasta into a hit motion picture would require a filmmaker with proven cinematic chops and unimpeachable cred with the established fanbase — i.e. Kane Parsons. It would also take a stable of producers with rock-solid bona fides, like James Wan, Osgood Perkins, and Shawn Levy of all people. And of course we need a studio willing and able to produce a low-budget movie with a creepy and highly experimental premise from an unknown filmmaker, which is pretty much the entire business model of A24. (In fact, the 19-year-old Parsons is now the youngest feature director in the studio’s history.) Thus, Backrooms<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Side note: It bears repeating that there are multiple different iterations of the Backrooms, with different rules and lore for each one. But since Kane Parsons is in charge here, we’re going with the canon as established in Parsons’ previous work. Call it “the Dave Filoni rule.”)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We lay our scene in July of 1990, and the plot revolves around two individuals. Renate Reinsve plays Dr. Mary Kline, a psychologist who’s coping with some persistent family trauma. Mostly because her childhood home is getting torn down and her feelings about that are, uh… mixed, shall we say. Thus the theme of buildings and the emotional attachments thereof are firmly and quickly established.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other main character is one of her patients, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor. Clark used to be an aspiring architect, until those dreams fell through and now he’s stuck running a furniture store without any customers. His money problems, ego problems, and alcohol problems all fuel each other in a downward spiral until his wife finally throws him out of the house. So now Clark is literally sleeping in the very same godforsaken furniture store he’s in danger of losing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then Clark unwittingly discovers that his furniture store just happens to be built directly atop a portal to the Backrooms. It’s all downhill from there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Naturally, the Backrooms has always been a metaphor for the inescapable monotony of everyday modern life in our late-stage capitalist world. But the filmmakers do something truly ingenious here and go one step further: In this picture, the Backrooms are a metaphor for the human mind itself. The characters (Mary, most especially) put a lot of screentime into talking about repeated behaviors and habits. The film posits that we are each stuck in a labyrinth of our own making, following the same routines in the same places according to the same schedule. Whether it’s because of cultural pressure, a sense of security, genetics or family trauma or whatever other reason, the effect is the same: Change becomes harder because we’re addicted to the status quo, no matter how harmful it may be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The characters — some more than others — are innately drawn to the Backrooms precisely because nothing changes in there. It’s a lonely place without any of the capitalist pressures to pay bills. There’s nobody there to hurt and nobody to demand any kind of change. Sure, the creatures living in the Backrooms (and no, I don’t dare elaborate on the creatures any further than I must) are a problem, but find a way to live with that ongoing threat and the unyielding monotony of the surroundings could be considered a safe haven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Granted, all of this creepy and insightful mindfuckery is slightly undercut by the monsters that barge in for the occasional jump scare or chase sequence. Then again, the film offers an impressively creative justification for the monsters and how they came to be in the Backrooms. I might further add that the chase scenes are crucial in selling the sight gags and set pieces inherent in the concept. To wit, when a character spends so many minutes staring at a weird assortment of decorations and furniture, it gets boring after a while. But if a character is trying to find a way around that weird assortment to try and get away from a monster at their heels, that’s a great deal more exciting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, I’m at a loss for what else to say about Backrooms<\/em>. It’s a brief 110-minute film, and the bulk of that is spent exploring the premise. And remember, the scope of the premise is literally infinite. Sure, the pacing drags a bit at first, and the film is certainly a slow burn, but that back half picks up in a big way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There’s a sci-fi angle that only really serves to abruptly cut the film when the runtime is up. There are three or four other characters who do a decent job providing comic relief and propping up the only two characters that really matter. And those two lead actors do a fantastic job selling the premise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of all, this is one of those times when discovery and exploration are the main attractions. To say any more would take away from the enjoyment of watching it. And the whole film is so surprisingly well-crafted, so insightful and incisive in its psychological horror and themes, I’d say it’s absolutely worth a watch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This one’s far better than it had any right to be. You won’t be missing much if you wait for home viewing, but I wouldn’t regret a big-screen viewing either. Check it out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mindfuckery<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":734,"featured_media":13673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1139,5158,5159,211,5160,5161],"class_list":["post-13668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-chiwetel-ejiofor","tag-finn-bennett","tag-lukita-maxwell","tag-mark-duplass","tag-renate-reinsve","tag-the-backrooms"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/PXL_20260529_192620609-scaled-e1780082919853.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3uOb3-3ys","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/734"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13668"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13672,"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13668\/revisions\/13672"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}