Backrooms will be one of horrors, if not all of films, love it or hate it movies of 2026.
Not knowing the vast back history of Backrooms previous to the movie outside of knowing it came from 4chan before director Kane Parsons made short films on Youtube of it before making his directorial debut with the feature length Backrooms film this year. Impressive to say the least.
We follow Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), owner of a failing furniture store, who amid a seperation from his wife and therapy, finds what appears to be a portal in the basement wall of his store. It takes him to an area where size seems to not matter where it appears to be a nonstop run of hallways, rooms, and corridors, all shaped differently but draped in the same wallpaper and lighting.
As he explores more he starts to see and hear things along with items that appear to be similar or the same to ones from his own world and he falls deeper into this new world bringing in the few people around him he has left with him.
On an atmospheric and aesthetic level Parsons delivers here great. The backrooms themselves feel bright, unique, big and endless, while also constantly eery, off putting, and sometimes downright terrifying. Our moments exploring it are filled with a constant worry of what is around the corner, especially in the moments where we are shown it through an older camcorder, and if anything I wish we got more exploration of it. For a seemingly endless void of rooms I feel like we barely got to crack the surface either.
That may be in part though to the fact that the film also tries to juggle itself into being a drama far too much. Ejiofor and co-star Renate Reinsve, who plays Clark’s therapist Mary, really go all in on their characters. Their stories are believable and the drama there works on the surface but past that the flaws start to show. We get too much backstory on Mary where I feel like we didn’t entirely need it, or to the amount we got it even, and these long dialog driven parts between our stays in the backrooms really show that the films writing here wasn’t its strong suit.
Where the film will really divide fans though is its third act, which is arguably its weakest moment. Casual fans or those not into the lore of backrooms will likely hate the ending here but even the climax feels rushed. The film goes from a solid pacing to an all out sprint where it feels like we skipped numerous steps inbetween. It leads to a big final moment which has a lot of great visual spots in it though that are sure to be talked about for some time.
Backrooms isn’t a failure though by any means. It does enough to show great premise, show Kanes potential, and give an insight to what is an endless amount of content that I’m sure we are going to get about the backrooms. If the dialog could be cleaned up some, along with some mild pacing issues, and the final climax that would take this was good to great. Though just like the backrooms itself, this will be wildly different for every single person.
Score :
3 / 5
