‘Backrooms’ review: meme-based horror runs on unsettling vibes and creepy visuals

Few films feel quite as of-the-moment as Backrooms, an adaptation of a YouTube anthology based on a viral meme and featuring the kind of unsettling images of unreality that a disturbed AI engine might hallucinate. This conceptually bold horror is directed by series creator Kane Parsons (also known by the YT handle Kane Pixels), who at 20 years old is the youngest director of an A24 film and the latest in an unofficial gang of YouTubers turned filmmakers (see also Talk To Me’s Philippou brothers, Obsession’s Curry Barker and Iron Lung’s Markiplier).

• READ MORE: The Philippou Brothers are reinventing horror from outside the Hollywood system

Like the series it’s inspired by, Backrooms has a disquieting visual style that finds the creepiness in a bland setting. It feels dated even in the film’s ‘90s timeframe. Beginning with recovered footage from an unseen camera-wielder, Backrooms explores endless beige rooms, decorated with off-kilter details that lend the seemingly infinite environment the aura of a half-remembered dream. After that cold open, the film reverts to a more traditional filmmaking style, though it returns to found footage segments as down-on-his-luck furniture store owner Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) discovers the expansive liminal space in the bowels of his building, and documents what he finds to prove his sanity to his shrink, Kate (Sentimental Value’s Renate Reinsve).

Weirdly similar in set-up to recent video game adaptation Exit 8 – in which a man must navigate his way out of a subway station that’s stuck on a recurring loop – Backrooms makes more effective use of the premise, thanks to Parsons’ instinctive ability to exploit the fear of what lurks around corners. The world is part Escher sketch, part glitching sci-fi horror game. Almost three decades on from game-changer The Blair Witch Project, the combination of handheld footage and heavy breathing is still a startlingly effective shortcut to squirms.

It’s a film of two halves and the first is the more satisfying. If the characters aren’t quite as dimensional as the backrooms’ endless corridors, it certainly helps to have actors as accomplished as Ejiofor and Reinsve classing up the joint. Both are believable even as things become borderline silly – and they bring some grounding dramatic weight to the ‘creepypasta’ concept (think urban legends for the terminally online). Writer Will Soodik (Ash vs Evil Dead) pins the visual concept to ideas of psychological loops in a way that’s not too heavy-handed, but a big part of the film’s appeal is its open-ended approach, which will launch countless post-cinema conversations.

The presence of an upstart Gen X filmmaker in a crucial supporting role feels fitting, and is one of several elements of knowing humour – alongside some dialogue beats and a nod to The NeverEnding Story – that prevents the film from becoming po-faced. And if one key creation in the final act threatens to be a distraction, it’s at least in keeping with the general sense of nightmarish illogic.

Backrooms vibes-based momentum won’t be to everyone’s taste. For some there’ll be too much explanation and for others, too little. But it’s an intriguing, memorable creation with the power to rattle, as Parsons lurks in the intersection between dread and delirium. Well worth exploring.