Backrooms

A little background on today's subject: Kane Parsons is a 21-year-old independent film director whose debut, Backrooms, skyrocketed to #1 at the box office when it opened this past May. As of this writing, the movie has grossed more than $400m since its release. Originally developed as a YouTube series (when Parsons was 17), Backrooms quickly went viral, attracting the attention of several movie studio executives and industry luminaries, including Osgood Perkins (film director, and son of Anthony) and James Wan (architect of the Saw, Conjuring, and Insidious franchises), who signed on as producers of the film. 

Initially I wasn't certain if I even wanted to write about Backrooms after viewing it. For one thing, I wasn't exactly sure how I felt about it. I'm still not 100% sure but I've somewhat come around in the past couple of days, now that I've had time to think about it.

So, there is no "in-a-nutshell" way of breaking down what this movie is about. Let's just say that Backrooms sort of brings to mind Apple TV's Severance, the 60's hit The Outer Limits and Mark Z. Danielewski's polarizing House of Leaves (see my post on that one here). Whether Backrooms was inspired by those works is hard to say; it winds up being its own thing, something I've not quite seen anywhere else. It's been described as a horror movie but it's not just that. It's also a psychological thriller and a sci-fi-tinged brainteaser that requires the viewer to have patience and to consider what is happening onscreen and what (if anything) it all means. 

The movie opens with a staticky video revealing a panicked man in a biohazard suit being pursued through a maze of rooms and corridors by some hulking, barely glimpsed entity. After the man is captured and killed by his assailant, the computer screen goes blank, reflecting a group of figures standing silently in the background and wearing lab coats bearing the name ASYNC. The scene then cuts to a young man and woman filming a television ad for a cut-rate furniture store in a suburban hellscape. The commercial's star, Clark, is also the store's owner, a failed architect recently ejected from his house by a wife (alleged to be) fed up with his excuses for coming home late (among other things). Despite his claims of being overwhelmed with work, Clark's store, Cap'n Clark's Ottoman Empire, never seems to attract a single customer. Business is bad--worse than bad--and Clark, now homeless and nearly broke, has taken up residence in the store since he can't afford to stay anywhere else. Assistant store manager Kat shows up to work every day while her film student boyfriend, Bobby, films Clark's commercials and helps out when needed, but Clark grows more and more isolated in his desperation. His therapist, Mary, listens patiently while he complains about his life, but she can't seem to jar him out of his inertia. She employs a role-playing technique which actually seems to work but, then suddenly backfires--to everyone's misfortune. 

One night, drinking and depressed, Clark inadvertently stumbles upon a mysterious portal in the wall of a basement storeroom. Passing effortlessly through the wall, he finds himself in a large, yellow room stacked with old furniture and clothing. This yellow room opens up into another and then another, all featuring fluorescent lighting and the same motif of misshapen furniture and other everyday objects sunken halfway into the floor. When Clark hears a strange, shuffling noise approaching him, he manages to get back through the portal in the wall, where he is terrified but exhilarated. After discovering that there are even more rooms beneath these rooms (and more beneath those), Clark persuades Kat and Bobby to assist him in his exploration. Armed only with a line of sturdy rope, flashlights and a camcorder, the trio--beginning with Bobby--prepares for their descent. Unfortunately, it turns out that these liminal spaces are, in a sense, omnivorous--malformed tables, chairs and stop signs aren't the only items being consumed. 

Clark manages to leave a cryptic message on Mary's answering machine and when he doesn't return her calls, she makes her way to Cap'n Clark's Ottoman Empire and its labyrinth of backrooms where a terrifying truth awaits her. 

Interspersed between all these scenes are sequences involving a small girl and her increasingly unhinged mother. What does it all mean? 

Good question. If you've a grasp of human psychology, you'll recognize themes of repressed trauma and self-consuming rage acting as buttresses for the story. To say much more than that, however, undermines the movie's rich ambiguity. 

Oscar-nominated British actor (12 Years a Slave) Chiwetel Ejiofor delivers one of his best performances playing Clark as a shaky, morally compromised character whose inability (or unwillingness) to help himself or the others is at the core of their dilemma. With Ejiofor's sly facial expressions and unruly mannerisms, it's easy to spot a man devolving into madness. Even though we hope he'll pull himself together, we also wonder whether or not the wife he left behind on that disastrous night is alive or lying dead on the floor in a pool of blood. Renate Reinsve (Oscar nominee for last year's Sentimental Value) is perfectly cast as the brave, haunted therapist, Mary. Clark clearly unsettles her--it's all over her face--but she somehow manages to maintain her composure, and that's what makes Reinsve's performance so great. There's so much going on underneath Mary's calm exterior that we're allowed only glimpses of the turmoil and insecurity hidden within. Finn Bennett and Lukita Maxwell (Bobby and Kat) are very good in the early scenes they're in, and director/writer/producer Mark Duplass makes an impression as a shady family man keeping secrets. 

Although the movie takes place almost entirely in an endless series of vast yellow rooms (with that awful fluorescent lighting), Jeremy Cox's cinematography amplifies the fear factor by not keeping us in the dark, by highlighting the encroaching horror in bright, almost sunshine-y surroundings that are both nauseating and alarming. 

I think what impresses me most about Backrooms is the young director's grasp of surreal concepts that--at least on some level--tie right back into lived human experiences. He demonstrates such a sure hand it's hard to believe that this is his first film. I'll be looking forward to his future projects! 

In case you're not aware, I love movies and enjoy writing about them, but I have to say that blogging about this one has been a challenge.  It's dark (in theme) and thought-provoking and I'm so glad I saw it. But I'm not sure I'd watch it again.