Backrooms Review: A New Chapter in Horror!

June 6, 2026June 6, 2026 Stephanie Young 0 Comments Backrooms, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Finn Bennett, Hollywood, Hollywood Movie Reviews, Hollywood Movies, Horror, Horror Movies, Kane Parsons, Mark Duplass, Renate Reinsve

The places we find most familiar, most comforting, and most routine provide us with a sense of safety and normalcy. We inhabit places like schools, bedrooms, malls, stores, and even theaters habitually, enough where when we find ourselves alone in these places that provide a stillness we aren’t used to, they become eerie. The term liminal space has been attributed to these places, where they feel dreamlike or caught between reality and something else entirely. When nobody is around with us to experience this phenomenon it feels like anything can and will happen, and the things we fear most may just be hiding in the backrooms.

Kane Parson’s web series of the same name was released on YouTube in 2022, based on the creepypasta concept of backrooms being places outside of reality. What resulted was an internet hit that garnered the attention of A24 with an interest in allowing Parsons to direct a feature length film based on his series at twenty years old. Backrooms is a new chapter in the realm of Parson’s Backrooms series where audiences are asked to leave their expectations and knowledge at the door for a new take on the concept that highlights new fears beyond the original series.

Clark, the owner of Cap’n Clark’n Ottoman Empire, sells furniture in a pirate themed store rather than pursuing his desire of being an architect. He visits Mary, his therapist, regularly to discuss his loneliness, anger, and alcoholism in the midst of a divorce from his wife. Upon dealing with electrical issues at the store and an anomaly with the store’s circuit breaker, Clark discovers a portal into a massive place attached to the store, where his desire to forge a new path and discover more for himself seems to now be within arms reach.

Backrooms is a new chapter in horror and cinema itself, coming from young filmmakers with fresh voices and elevated intent to put themselves on the map (Parsons and Curry Barker of ‘Obsession’ being two directors just this week to dominate the box office with their films). The film puts forth a fantastic balance of digital and found-footage visuals that is reminiscent of Parson’s original series with theater aesthetics applied. The film itself has an otherworldly quality to it that amplifies the liminal space atmosphere placing audiences in a seemingly mundane place where its stillness and mood shake audiences to their core.

Written by Will Soodik, Backrooms is able to take the backbone of Parson’s creation and craft it in a way that uses its characters to take on additional concepts of what “the backrooms” may resemble. It never feels the need to develop extensive lore that will explain a massive concept like “the backrooms” that has an infinite realm of possibilities to explore. Its intention of remaining vague with the details of “the backrooms” only creates more intrigue into a world too complex to outline in one single way.

Some may see this as a cop out for developing a detailed script that answers a majority of questions, but opening up the film to various types of interpretations is what allows for more fear of the unknown to seep in. What many are calling a criticism of the film for this critic is exactly the reason it succeeds, where Parson’s series is still terrifying in its ambiguity, as is the film.

As Clark descends deeper and deeper into the backrooms and the audience learns more about his past and his path for the future, it becomes evident that Backrooms is symbolic of “back room dwellers” and internet spaces that have created a place for people to distance themselves from the real world and engage in actions and ideas where consequences no longer exist.

Clark is a man who blames everyone for his misfortunes but himself. He feels his value is not highlighted in the real world by his wife or even his therapist and will not accept his own flaws. When he enters and discovers more and more about “the backrooms” he feels safety and comfort in this place where he creates his own worth and life without the influence or judgment of others. He sees these never ending areas of space that resemble the real world but have a majorly distorted quality to them as just the kind of place he can thrive and feel at ease.

This is all reminiscent of “back room dwellers” on the internet, hiding behind keyboards and walls that allow them to say and engage in content and even actions that are disruptive to real world ideals. The backrooms are the physical manifestation of places like the dark web where people like Clark can feel vindicated in their separation from society and the choices they make behind closed doors. When Mary finds herself in the backrooms, she finds herself feeling unsafe and terrified by a place with no rules that the real world allows.

In this way, Backrooms opens itself up to a world full of questions and the feeling that the closer one gets to the truth behind it, the further from reality they will find themselves in. The film is just one small step in showing how a single concept can be expanded and innovated to explore infinite possibilities, some scarier than others.

‘Backrooms (2026)’ Rating – 4/5

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Stephanie Young

Senior Associate Writer at Just for Movie Freaks

Stephanie is a huge film fanatic, a librarian, and a baker! And when she isn't busy doing these activities, she is running around with her Australian Cattle Dog!

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