Backrooms (dir. Kane Parsons)
By: Adam Freed
The uncertain future of the film industry was teetering on the brink of disaster even before the global pandemic nearly delivered its death blow. The names that had come to represent box office reliability in the back half of the 20th century had all but disappeared, leaving a dark and uncertain path forward. And like a forest in the immediate aftermath of a great fire, it hasn’t taken long for the signs of young life to poke through the charred remains. Although many of the filmmakers of the previous millennium are gone, their impact, most notably on the young people interested in a career in the world of imagination, have started to emerge in their stead. No better proof of this evolutionary process exists than Kane Parsons, the 20 year-old director of Backrooms, a captivating psychological horror film that receives global distribution thanks to the vision of A24 Studios. Built upon Parsons’ innovative found footage web series, Backrooms is an intriguing and genuinely terrifying thrillride despite its inability to fully deliver in its final act.
Parsons’ film follows the story of Clark, the wayward manager of a failing Southern California furniture store in the early 1990s. Clark, embodied in mesmerizing fashion by Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave, The Life of Chuck), is a flawed character, haunted by his use of alcohol and the subsequent abrasiveness that follows. In search of relief from his demons, Clark meets with psychotherapist Mary to process his rage-based issues. Played by Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value, The Worst Person in the World), Mary attempts to act as a mirror to show Clark the impact of his prickly and borderline abusive demeanor. Clark feels that he is on the doorstep of a meaningful realization when he discovers an unexplainable phenomenon in the basement of his store, a phenomenon that he views as his opportunity to change his stars.
Plainly stated, Backrooms is a minimalist nightmare, one part fever dream, one part dark hallucination. Not since roaming the halls of Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) has the pensive promise of ghastly designs lurking around every corner felt quite so tactile and terrific. Although Backrooms is rooted in visual simplicity, Kane Parsons makes a series of sophisticated choices with regard to the way he distributes meticulously detailed, albeit limited, visual information within his haunting film. The gifted young filmmaker achieves fear through omission, a product of both carefully controlled camera work and a detailed lighting scheme.
It cannot be dismissed that Backrooms feels somewhat incomplete in its totality. There is unmistakably something left to be desired in the film's third act, a realization that is the result of a reveal in which mileage may vary, and a resolution that feels more like a comma or a question mark than it does a resounding exclamation point. All too often, lauding a young director means ostracizing older audiences. This couldn’t be further from the truth when it comes to the well-informed work of Kane Parsons. Backrooms is brilliantly informed by past genre fare, acting partially as a found footage homage to The Blair Witch Project (1999) and to an oppressive looming feeling of dread akin to The Shining or any number of Lynchian productions. Backrooms is an inspired debut from a filmmaker who feels extraordinarily confident in putting his thumbprint on a film that provides very few answers, but will certainly be the cause of much conversation and consternation. Needless to say, Kane Parsons has successfully added himself to a very short list of filmmakers who may become the next generation of mighty oaks in an industry, and a genre, both desperate to replace the Stanley Kubrick’s and David Lynch’s of the past.
Target Score 7.5/10 - Backrooms is as daring as it is terrifying. Kane Parsons shows no lack of confidence in his direction of a film that forces audiences to grip and claw their way through inspired minimalist set pieces in search of a meaning that is very much in the eye of the beholder.