EVERYONE is obviously talking about how Backrooms is directed by a 20 year old. Big whoop, Kane Parsons! You know what I did when I was 20? How about you try prepping for 3 midterms and a caps tournament, where you upset the 1 seed to the surprise of everyone in the Evans Scholars house. AND the girl you had a crush on agreed to go to formal with you? WHAT NOW, BRO? Sorry, I needed to vent. Maybe I need to open a few windows like Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve) suggests to make myself feel better.
After a chilling opening, we learn Dr. Kline’s main patient is furniture store owner Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor). Frustrated and angry after the divorce and the therapy not going great, Clark is equally pissed at the rising electrical bill at his store in the middle of the night. Staying there to investigate, he tracks the issue down to the basement, where he finds a portal to an extradimensional world that looks like an endless, yellow, fluorescent lit office space. Oh, and he’s not alone in there.
I so badly wanted Backrooms, and specifically Kane Parsons, to succeed. Having played a few of the Backrooms games, there’s a specific essence the world conjures, and I was hoping that essence could translate to the big screen. Parsons has spent a quarter of his life in the Backrooms lore; hell, he helped build the lore himself! So my fears were only based on his age, a lesson I won’t make again. This is a wonderfully assured first feature, nailing what makes those Backrooms so appealing. Using first person tracking shots, grainy 1990s camera styles, Parsons transports us out of time, to this surreal place. The dread he conjures of Clark or Mary slowly wandering down those yellow lit spaces is the stuff of nightmares, using the endless droning monotony tense up the users. The directors builds and builds, usually to an inflection point of sound or chilling half imagery that the user fills their greatest fears into. At times I felt like I was watching a Stanley Kubrick film, other times David Lynch, both in the best ways. Backrooms is one of those movies that feels like an experience you got to be a part of; best so if you get a chance to do it with others, tripped out by what you’re seeing.
The other thing Parsons does is surround himself with really excellent artists to help elevate his vision. In Backrooms’s case, the movie part is the inroad to the vibes, so Parsons relies on two of the best out there to sell those vibes. This movie’s a great reminder how versatile Chiwetel Ejiofor can be. He’s asked to take on a lot of roles in this movie, roles he nails over and over again, shapeshifting along with the vibe shifts. Renate Reinsve, the queen of intense personal dramas, has a blast going bigger here, using that expressive face to do a lot of heavy lifting. But Danny Vermette, Backrooms’s production designer. He starts with the maze like structure of the sets, wonderfully eerie and compelling, expertly recreated. Then Vermettte then introduces us to something familiar, but out of place: like a stop sign in a cubicle. Or a pile of clothes on the floor, inferring that there’s something else afoot, also in this vast place. Piled furniture. Sunken shoes, the most unwelcoming Christmas tree of all time. I couldn’t believe how well Danny Vermette understood his assignment, delivering everything Kane Parsons needed to make Backrooms the success that it is.
I want to see Kane Parsons make something brand new before fully hopping on his hype train. But as first features go, this is among the better ones, and definitely the most exciting. I hope you enjoy the afterpary Kane. Well, looking at it outside, from a window, cause you’re too young to get in. Dr. Mary Kline, when’s your next book coming out?