There is a certain nostalgic dread baked into the fluorescent-lit, maze-like aisles of a 1990s American furniture store, and on a purely visual level, Backrooms captures that atmosphere perfectly. The set design is undeniably gorgeous. Every meticulously crafted showroom and dimly lit corridor echoes a very specific point in time, completely immersing you in the look and feel of the era. Unfortunately, a beautiful set cannot save a film that doesn’t know what it wants to be. Is it a horror movie? It is a psychological thriller? Who knows. What I did love about the film, is it leaves you with many, MANY lingering questions that you may not know the answer to. This is the sign of a first time director who is coming in strong, making a statement of intent, he knows how to make lore, and how to do it well. While a lot of this movie just didn’t work for me in the script, the fully realised concept of what Backrooms is, it’s astounding visual style and many many “what the” moments make this one of the best debut features from a director.
If I had to describe the overall vibe, Backrooms feels like Skinamarink at Ikea. On paper, that sounds like a fantastic premise for an atmospheric nightmare. In execution, however, the movie isn’t scary in the slightest. There isn’t a single genuinely good scare to be found, and in a movie that uses some found footage moments (the best in the film btw!) having the film set in the 90’s and using that technology of the time does limit the effectiveness of this. When the film started with this found footage view, I was excited for another potential Blair Witch Project on our hands.
A major part of the film’s problem is that it feels entirely all over the place, particularly in its cinematography. When the movie shifts into found-footage mode, it actually works really well, tapping into the raw, claustrophobic dread that the “backrooms” internet lore is known for. But the moment it flips back to a traditional main camera setup, it immediately loses what makes the premise special, stripping away the tension and making the whole experience feel a little jarring. What was another big paint point for me was the lack of any real horror moments. There are no genuine scares here, and while this is being marketed as a horror movie, I found it to be more of a psychological thriller than anything else. Playing around with the discovery of this hidden door in a furniture store in smalltown USA, there are really great bones for a good story here, it just didn’t stick the landing completely.
It doesn’t help that the human element is completely hollow. None of the characters manage to connect, largely because they don’t have any redeeming qualities to grab onto. When you can’t bring yourself to care about the people trapped in the nightmare, the stakes completely evaporate. Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) does the best with what he is served up here, a struggling wannabe artchitecht who has lost his marriage and pushed everyone in his life away, constantly blaming everyone else and the world for the state that his life is in. He does get some great scenes with his therapist Mary (Renata Reinsve) whose muddled childhood may hide more secrets than she is letting on. The two have some great therapy moments, recreating the marriage breakdown and discussing Clark’s discovery of the secret doorway into the hidden room. There just wasn’t enough behind it to have that deeper connection you could feel the script was trying to force on you.
Visually the film is beautiful. Growing up in this era, the memory of VCR’s, personal computers with 3.5 inch hard disks and video cameras you had to rest on your shoulder. It all harkens back to the start of digital technology and this time period feels deliberate for this story. The fluro lighting of the store with the yellow and cream wallpaper that adorns every wall invokes the sensation of getting lost in your own mind, wandering through endless rooms, all decorated differently with different sized doors to figure out how to get through. It does all of this so effectively, it can leave you feeling more unsettled than scared.
Ultimately, Backrooms is a masterclass in 90s set design trapped inside a deeply flawed, frustratingly disjointed horror film. The studio behind it A24 is known for taking risks with its releases and is not afraid to lean heavily into the weird and wonderful, and this definitely fits into that category. It’s a visually stunning trip to the furniture store, but you’ll be looking for the exit long before the credits roll.
Backrooms is in cinemas May 28.
