Backrooms is Kane Parsons’s bold horror debut

In 2022 Kane Parsons, posting as Kane Pixels, turned the “backrooms” creepypasta into a web series about an interdimensional liminal space that looks like empty offices, as designed by someone who only has a vague notion of “office”. Now, Kane Parsons, at the tender age of 20, has turned his web series into a feature film starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve. Writer Will Soodik, a veteran of Westworld, Homeland, and Ash vs Evil Dead, adapted Parsons’ shorts into a feature-length script, and Parsons also collaborated with Edo Van Breemen for the film’s original score. Backrooms is a bold and interesting feature film debut from a (very) young and promising filmmaker, but it is ultimately the first feature by a (very) young and promising filmmaker.

Ejiofor stars as Clark, the owner of a failing furniture business—confusingly themed after both pirates and the Ottoman Empire—in the 1990s. Clark sees therapist Dr. Mary Kline (Reinsve) after being kicked out of the house by his wife, though therapy doesn’t seem to be helping him. Clark is frustrated and angry, his dreams of being an architect put on hold only to see his furniture business tank. One of the most charming details of Backrooms is that Clark is engaged in a cheesy local commercial war with another themed furniture business.

Clark is extra frustrated because as his business is going under, he’s running unusually high electricity bills, and while sleeping in the store one night, he sees the overhead lights come on. Looking for the source of the power thief, he discovers a wall that acts as a gateway into the “backrooms”, a mysterious liminal space. When he tries to explain what he found to Mary, she doesn’t believe him, but when Clark disappears, she follows him into the backrooms.

The first half of the film is very strong, existing on the creepy vibes of the backrooms, a never-ending liminal waiting room for the world’s worst dentist’s office, and Ejiofor’s and Reinsve’s excellent performances. Clark and Mary are haunted by their respective pasts, and how they confront, or don’t, their traumas inform how they each react to the backrooms. Oh, there is also a mysterious entity stomping around the backrooms.

Parsons milks a lot of tension out of endless hallways, harsh lights, and mysterious sounds. He has a distinct eye and strong command of the camera, Backrooms is ugly on purpose and beautiful in execution. The mid-90s aesthetic is horrendous, everything is chintzy, and the only charm comes from the jangle of landline phones and boxy cars. These are all deliberate choices that suck the nostalgia out of the Nineties and focus on the horror of mass production and declining manufacturing standards, but it also feeds the ugliness of the backrooms themselves, with endless walls of hideous yellow wallpaper and beige carpeting.

The back half of the film suffers some as, eventually, there must be narrative momentum toward a conclusion. Parsons, working from Soodik’s script, ends on a memorable visual and a haunting question about what really happened, which is a strong ending note, but the actual “okay but what IS it” part of act three is muddled and not as strong as the first half of the film. Backrooms pushes the limits of short-form storytelling when transposed to a full-length narrative. The concept is best as a mystery, when resolution must be achieved, things get a little wobbly, particularly for Clark. Mary’s emotional arc resolves more neatly; Clark’s fully goes off the rails in a “don’t show the shark” kind of way.

There is also the issue of that original score, from Parsons and Van Breemen, which is aggressive and invasive, often butting into moments that would be better served by a more lowkey approach. It feels very much like Parsons doesn’t trust the audience to get what he’s doing, but frankly, the backrooms concept isn’t that hard to grasp, and Parsons establishes his world within the film so well right off the bat, he doesn’t need the sonic support of an overwrought score to underline what’s important for the audience.

But these are forgivable flaws in a debut feature from a 20-year-old filmmaker. That the climax is a little wonky and the score overdone are not the worst sins a filmmaker can commit, especially when weighed against the creativity and fundamentally solid technical filmmaking on display. The film isn’t perfect, but it IS creepy and fun. Backrooms is a memorable debut, and Kane Parsons has nothing but runway ahead of him.

Backrooms is now playing exclusively in theaters.