BACKROOMS – Wait for Streaming

Bonnie DeShong

BACKROOMS is a science fiction psychological horror film in which Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a failing discount furniture store owner, is separated from his wife and forced to live in the store. He is seeing a therapist named Mary (Renate Reinsve) to try to understand his situation. We learn that Mary has some psychological issues, too.

One evening, Clark discovers another dimension in the basement of the store, an endless series of rooms that appear distorted. He explains the backrooms as asking someone who has never seen a dog to draw a dog. It may look like a dog from a distance, but up close, it is distorted.   He tells Mary about this, and she thinks he is having an episode until she receives a voicemail from him saying he will not be returning. Mary goes to the store, finds the entrance to the backrooms, and goes looking for Clark.

Okay, up to this point, as an audience member, you are going along with the plot while wondering, why would people wander around these backrooms without going back for help.  This takes place in the 80’s, so there aren’t cell phones to take with you.  

Up until now, BACKROOMS is a B-movie horror film.  This is where it goes way south. Mary finds Clark, he knocks her out, and she wakes up tied up in a room from, we assume, Clark’s imagination. He is totally out of his mind. Enters a distorted Cap’n Clark, the furniture store’s pirate mascot, who chases Mary through the backrooms until she is “saved” by a group of researchers in hazmat suits, who subdue the entity and take Mary back to their research facility.

Yes, all of this has been a part of a research project of the backrooms by a company called Async, which made MRI machines until they discovered the Backrooms, which has since become the primary focus of their research.

Do they let Mary go, or is she stuck in the backrooms as a distorted entity of herself?

This film is directed and co-scored by Kane Parsons (in his feature-length directorial debut) and written by Will Soodik. It is based on Parsons’s web series and inspired by the “Backrooms” creepypasta.

BACKROOMS is as distorted as the rooms it is named after. After a while, things are so absurd that you just don’t care. The question of why kept going through my mind.  Why did Clark stay there? Why did Mary, after seeing what was going on, leave and get help? Why, if Async was doing research and monitoring the backrooms, didn’t they help Clark and others who may have wandered in there?  Why did I spend money to see this film?

BACKROOMS is one I would suggest you wait till it comes to a streaming channel near you.

I give it 2 ½ winks of the EYE.

Until next time, keep your EYE to the sky!