The liminal space has been having something of a renaissance in contemporary horror film, to the point where it might have arguably lost some of its power and meaning. That is, until the pandemic, and various lockdowns around the world, and the spaces that were once filled with people suddenly becamse empty. It's now much easier for us to understand how a vast space of rooms and corridors that appear as some kind of bland office interior design could hide that which is monstrous, and lonely, and both. A metaphor for much of contemporary existence, but perhaps more importantly, a way of envisioning the labyrinth of the human mind.
The web series sensation of the past few years, Backrooms takes its youtube stories of endless passageways that lead to echoes of the detritus of our material world, bizarre modern minotaurs, and nods to other spaces of strangeness that manifested in this dark timeline, and fashions an intriguing and disturbing story. Directed by Kane Parsons, and written by Parsons and Will Soodik, it proves that this young wunderkind has a lot more up his sleeve to move from the small to the big screen, and recruits the right talent to lead us all through this maze.
A little of the framing of the story is revealed in the trailer: Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) runs a furniture store, in the storage room of which he finds a place where he can walk through a wall. On the other side of that wall, is a space that looks similar to the furniture store storage area, but it's ... not quite right. Corridor after corridor, incomplete staircases, strange passageways that you have to hoist yourself up to, and something is finding the odd living creature in this space, and, well, there is blood, and detritus, and something smells rotten. Clark tries to convince his therapist Mary (Renate Reinsve), and he takes his employees to film what he sees.
Given the concept of the film, the nature of the web series, and the difference when that story is transferred to a cinema, there is a risk that the framing will be incidental or merely tacked on for the sake of some found footage jump scares. Luckily, Parsons does not fall into this trap. Quite the opposite: the characters we meet in the beginning, their lives and stories, are keys to the mood and the architecture of the location. These are two adults whose lives feel incomplete, who have lost something either through circumstance or bad choices, and their lives are unsettled and alone, even if they have people around them. Even turns that we might think would reveal some kind of government conspiracy turn out to be those just as frustrated and baffled as those who inadventently stumble upon this physical manifestation of our dreams and nightmare worlds.
There is a scene where Clark is trying to film a commercial for his furniture store, and even in what should be a space filled with merchandise, you can almost hear the echoes. Not only are there no customers, but there is hardly anything to sell. Nothing in his life seems to be filled, or fulfilled, more accurately. Hence, what he sees in these backrooms is that detritus of life. Both Eljiofor and Reinsve are terrific at creating these complete characters who we understand from a few conversations and how they behave when alone. Do they see the same things when they are in this space? Mary has her own past experience with the inability to escape a physical space that seems impossibly furnished yet devoid of graspable meaning. What will exposure to the debris of their psyches in the backrooms do to them?
The spaces of the film are a deceptive minimalism; furniture is both true to the story's origins (Parsons got his inspiration from the creepypastas that were born from a strange photo of an empty space, eventually discovered to be the basement of a furniture store), and an apt metaphor for human memory and unconscious: what spaces do we imagine ourselves in when we remember our past? How do we play out scenes in our minds, and do we understand the true fallability of human memory? If the emptiness of the shopping area where Clark's store is, the empty yard of Mary's childhood home, are not sufficient to hold their psyches, the backrooms will manifest it all for them, but misremembered, distorted, and terrifying.
Using various means of screen interaction, incluing old video camera found footage, security cameras, tape cassettes, mini discs, and audio equipment that still has old school physical dials and levers (my GenX self did appreciate the tactility of this), this is a journey that Parsons wants the audience to understand how we sort out our memories, thoughts, and emotions, viewing them through different lenses, and imagining them in spaces in that home of our minds. But in this home of our minds, it's not just kitchens and bedrooms, it's all the spaces we have occupied, and everything we think we have thrown into the back of our brains for safekeeping. Except nothing is safe, and no floor plan will help you.
Backrooms is a truly unsettling film, giving depth and substance to what might seem like a youtube gimmick. It keeps its characters at the heart of the story, placing them in that most contemporary of the Freudian uncanny spaces, and against its stark ugly wallpaper background, manifests a frightening and all too familiar tale of what happens when we looks inside our own and others' minds.
Backrooms will be released in the USA and Canada on Friday, May 29th.