Chiwetel Ejiofor gets lost in the caverns of his mind—and some mysterious, warehouse-like portals—in Backrooms, one of the weirdest horror films of the decade.
Writer-director Kane Parsons, who has been posting videos—including a web series with the same name—involving backrooms on YouTube over the past few years, brings his ideas to the big screen in a film with a vibe similar to that of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.
The film is set in the ’90s, and Ejiofor plays Clark, an alcoholic who has just broken up with his wife and is living in the strange furniture store he operates. While roaming around in the basement, he slips through a portal into a realm of mostly yellow hallways and rooms that seem like a strange re-creation or extension of the store. Loud noises and things moving around in there would keep most folks away, but Clark is drawn to it for some reason—and he wants to know more.
He tells his therapist, Mary (Renate Reinsve of Sentimental Value), about the place. She has her doubts, and, of course, she goes to check things out when Clark starts missing sessions. That’s all I’m going to tell you.
The film gets high marks for cinematography and atmosphere, but the performances of Ejiofor and Reinsve really sell it. They go all in for Parsons, and it pays major dividends.
Parsons has made a movie that is oddly familiar yet unsettling, bizarre and very scary when it tries to be.
He started working on this movie as a teen and is just about to turn 21. He may have an interesting future as a filmmaker ahead of him.