Review: Backrooms (2026)

How to review a movie like Backrooms?  Based off a creepypasta turned YouTube series, the film follows Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) a furniture store owner who discovers an entrance to the titular Backrooms within his store, and Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve), Clark's therapist who is dealing with her own trauma.  The movie is almost dreamlike in its structure, and it plays with how trauma affects memory while still telling a straightforward story.

I don't quite think that film succeeds at all of its goals - the ending in particular will likely make people throw their hands up in frustration - but it captures an altogether off-putting tone throughout its runtime that makes it well worth watching.

The movie is amazing for how well directed it is by first-time filmmaker Kane Parsons, who had his own Backrooms webseries prior to making this film, with plans to continue said series even after this movie's wild success.

Parsons takes a fairly sparse script and just fills it to the brim with mood and otherworldliness. For a film that could very easily have become 'actors walk through rooms with weird decorations,' Parson deftly dodges that trap with interesting shots and camera movements and - most importantly - no false jump scares to break the tension.  Said tension almost becomes overwhelming in parts due to Parsons refusal to give an easy break.

In fact, that might be one of the greatest strengths of this movie: It trusts that the audience can wait.  The movie isn't scary in the modern sense that the audience would expect, but takes a more traditional slow build approach.

It helps to have Oscar-caliber actors in the lead roles (both Ejiofor and Reinsve have been nominated in recent years) who are capable of filling in the details of these characters and make them feel perfectly human in a situation that feels like it has dream-logic.  There audience won't feel the need to ask why these characters keep going back into the Backrooms, thanks in part to both actors perfectly calibrating their performances to the tone and tenor of the film.

With so much praise for the film, it hurts to have to get into why I ultimately think it doesn't work, but I will: the script just needs a bit more of everything.  The actors fill out their characters well, but we could use a bit more of information other than the therapy sessions and vague memories.  The ultimate resolution is a good ending for the film, but it feels like it leaves out just a little too much of an explanation of what is going on.  The final shots tie into the themes of the movie, but could have used a few more threads so that 'backrooms ending explained' isn't a top search term.

Despite my feeling that the movie ultimately fails to cohere at the end, I am thankful for its existence.  I'd rather have what I consider an interesting failure over what could have been a cheap gore movie that had nothing to say.

6 out of 10, but I could see this one growing on me.