I’ll be honest, I’ve never understood the internet’s fascination with the whole “backrooms” concept or why everyone is so freaked out by “liminal spaces” in general. It’s all just come off as extremely goofy to me personally. So imagine my surprise when I found out that they were legitimately attempting to turn this obsession of the terminally online into a serious, elevated horror flick. This 4chan derived thing I’d primarily seen used to create endless cheap Steam streamer bait games or Roblox kiddie time-wasters. It caught me off guard to say the least.

I was even more surprised when I saw it was shockingly receiving some pretty rave reviews, despite the trailer looking exactly as silly as everything else backrooms related I’d witnessed up to that point. I genuinely thought this was going to be one of those relatively rare A24 critical flops. Consequently, it was then that I decided it was probably time for me to make a concerted effort to figure out what I was missing and discover why these endless yellow hallways have captured the minds of so many, which led to me watching Kane Parsons’ defining YouTube series.

Overall, I found bulk of the 22-episodes to be rather meandering, largely kind of dull, and ultimately aimless. Yet, on top of simply walking away impressed with the undeniable amount of talent the young director of this feature showed even as a teenager, I do feel they revealed to me the creepypasta horror premise’s immense potential. Something that allowed me to go into the theater for this with an optimistic mindset. As a result, I’m a little devastated to report that the said potential was not reached here in my eyes. This feels like the big, culminating moment for the online phenomenon, and I think it’s utter dogcrap.

This is a dreadfully boring experience that also suffers from being the type of movie that believes it’s smart when in reality it is actually deeply, deeply dumb. I seriously cannot begin to fathom why there are people arguing that there’s “no way Parsons directed this.” First of all, it’s ignorant to assume this wouldn’t have been competently put together merely because of his age considering what literal children are accomplishing on the same video-sharing platform he got his start on, but it’s not as if he’s done anything terribly impressive in this debut either. In fact, a lot of his decisions behind the camera are part of what cause this to be such a snoozefest by preventing a much-needed sense of terror from ever setting in.

It’s hard to take in the vibes of isolation or the unnatural architecture that’s unnerved the legions of backrooms devotees when every scene is distractingly cluttered with furniture that oddly robs the environments of atmosphere and their unnatural mystique. Not to mention, he makes the critical genre mistake of revealing his monsters (or should I say, “entities”) too clearly to the audience, which proves problematic as the majority of their appearances are funnier than they are frightening. To the degree of even stripping the otherwise far more menacing and imposing main one of its potential fear factor as well. Perhaps the most disappointing flaw to me though is how bafflingly low energy the chase sequences are. I fully expected a lot better from Parsons in the horror department given that he had already shown us less than two years prior with his truly scary Found Footage #3 that he was totally capable of delivering on that front. No joke, all the stuff I just complained about? Done infinitely better there.

I’m of the opinion that it’s the script that hindered my enjoyment across the 1h 45m runtime more than anything Parsons did or didn’t do, however. The pacing drags as the incomplete, first draft feeling plot focuses more on the underdeveloped main protagonist’s equally underdeveloped personal, everyday life problems as opposed to the supernatural plight he finds himself in, before culminating in one of those unfulfilling conclusions that offers no real sense of resolution as instead the film simply sort of abruptly ends. All for the sake of delivering a message/moral that we’ve seen in countless other A24 productions now, altogether tragically wasting an excellent Chiwetel Ejiofor performance. At least our leading man somewhat gets a full arc. His therapist co-lead meanwhile is an absolute nothingburger of a character. There are scenes that show she’s struggling with childhood trauma, but it frustratingly doesn’t get explored in the slightest. They inexplicably do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING with it, leading me to question why they even bothered including it. Especially since they didn’t put in the effort to give her a personality either.

The last of my woes with the writing comes from how the final moments still try to convince us that the backrooms themselves are this mystifying, incomprehensible mystery beyond human understanding. In spite of not long beforehand having completely explained what was going on with them in a totally and easily comprehensible manner (🤦‍♂️). I can’t help but let out an exasperated chuckle every time I think about that…

After going down this imageboard originating rabbit hole I’m convinced that appreciating the backrooms in any format, be it this cinematic work or a different medium entirely, requires a natural affinity for the conceit that I plainly do not possess. To date I have yet to see it taken anywhere interesting or of true value. Consequently, I’m “no-clipping” away from this whole shebang. Let me know if the inevitable sequel somehow manages to fix things, because unless that happens I’m forever done with these urine-colored walls.

4/10