Backrooms

Backrooms could have easily been disposable internet-horror junk food—a feature-length extension of creepypasta aesthetics with nothing underneath. Instead, Parsons delivers something far more haunting: an affecting horror film about imprisonment, memory distortion, and the private hell of mistaking isolation for refuge.

Casts a surrealistic spell that’s unlike anything else in contemporary cinema.

Debut director Kane Parsons assuredly harnesses the creepy, mind-bending potential of this liminal concept, delivering an original horror that has both the scares and the smarts.

Parsons proves to be an expert manipulator of space with the camera.

It’s a movie in awe of the expansive bizarro universe it’s created out of the mundane everyday, and that alone proves infectious.

The film is at its best early on, as Clark wanders through a physical environment that, to his mind and ours, has no obvious origin and no clear reason to exist. Ironically, it’s when the script begins to roll out the explanations that the entire edifice threatens to collapse.

It's like watching fantastically dull scenarios from the 2007 first person video game Portal apparently a source of inspiration for Parsons. There are breaks for backstory — Clark had a volatile marriage; Mary's mother was sectioned — but these add little meaningful context or narrative grounding.

There's never been a film like this. The concept is so good that you really want it to go on and on like the backrooms themselves. The idea of what's around the next corner is both exciting and terrifying, like life itself. I haven't been able to get it out of my head. An absolutely masterpiece on every level

The pre-title sequence had the first jump scare that properly got me in a long time, shame this was as scary as it got. I didn't like the motivational speech montage. The characters were fairly engaging and very well acted. I didn't like the centre framing, especially because it ruins the negative space creepiness this could have had. The CGI falling through the wall looked goofy. The things half stuck in things was overused. The music worked well. The sense of exploration and scale is excellent but it's really slow in the middle, this is when it lost me. The monster was goofy and the finale was not exciting. With a great first half and unengaging second half it’s probably just about above average overall.

Really strong first half of the movie, but much weaker second half. Overall decent, but not something I’d care to watch twice. I would be interested in a sequel though.

Dull. While the "lore" might've been fascinating, the premise they built this movie on led to an uninspired, non-engaging slog. Didn't care about anything going on and most certainly couldn't care less for any of the characters.

This film has a solid cast and great atmosphere, but it's incredibly slow and ultimately meaningless.