This review contains spoilers. The “Backrooms” movie brings one of the internet’s most mysterious and unsettling legends to life. Based on the viral concept of endless yellow hallways and empty rooms, the film follows characters who become trapped in a seemingly infinite world. Through suspense, mystery and psychological horror, “The Backrooms” explores themes of isolation and fear of the unknown.
To begin the movie, a scientist, Phil, is separated from his group and becomes lost in the backrooms. Showing the backrooms early in the movie from a first person point of view gives the beginning a creepy and unknown start. The scientist is eventually attacked by an unknown entity.
The movie transitions into showing the main character, Clark, a depressed alcoholic trying to follow his dreams in architecture, but is left to run a run-down unsuccessful, pirate-themed furniture store.
Clark sees a therapist to try to handle his problems, Mary Kline. Throughout the movie, flashbacks of Mary’s life are shown. She too is working through trauma of the demolition of her childhood home and her mother’s institutionalization. Mary and Clark work together to untangle Clark’s split with his wife. The therapy sessions show a first glance of psychological horror as Clark’s anger threatens to take over.
Due to his crumbling marriage, Clark sleeps at his furniture store. He first discovered the backrooms when he found a strange doorway hidden in the store’s basement. Letting curiosity take over, he steps through it and enters the endless maze of empty rooms and hallways. Throughout this scene, the lights are always flickering, adding to the suspense, and, as soon as he walks through, the room looks exactly like the original backroom picture.
Although he manages to escape by following exploring and hearing voices, the experience leaves him fascinated and obsessed. Adding to his mental health problems, uncovering the secrets becomes his addiction, which makes him recruit two of his employees to help him further discover and to prove to Mary he isn’t crazy through recordings.
Already halfway through the movie, only four characters are thoroughly introduced. This exemplifies the character development and helps focus deeper into the characters.
In his expedition with his two employees Kat and Bobby, the attacks begin. Bobby gets ambushed and killed by an unknown creature, with Kat following soon after, leaving Bobby once again alone.
A concerned Mary eventually visits the store and shortly after finds the backroom entrance in the basement. After exploring, she eventually runs into a psychotic Clark and goes unconscious. She wakes up at a dining room table with Clark and three malformed, unresponsive imitations of humans. This is the first scene in the movie that is r terrifying. It is also still unknown who the killer is.
Right when Clark is letting Mary go, he is interrupted by the arrival of a towering, distorted version of Cap’n Clark, the furniture store’s pirate mascot, who ends up killing Clark and chases Mary throughout the backrooms trying to kill her next. In this scene, different, unique backrooms are shown to further portray its mirror and distortion of reality.
After attacking and beating the monster, Mary triggers a gas trap, alerting a group of researchers in hazmat suits, and she is taken to their research facility. After recovering, she is brought to interrogation where she meets Phil and he explains how their research shifted from MRI machines to the backrooms. This ties the end back to the beginning.
The movie concludes with Mary asking if she could ever leave. Inside the backrooms, a series of spaces are lined by Mary’s memories and trauma, ending in a loosely copied interrogation room in which a fractured, deformed simulacrum of Mary sits still and silent.
Overall, “The Backrooms” is a suspenseful and creative horror film that successfully brings the popular internet mystery to the big screen. Its unique setting and story telling, as well as the amazing character development kept viewers engaged from beginning to end.
