{"id":33633,"date":"2026-06-03T14:08:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T21:08:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=33633"},"modified":"2026-06-03T14:08:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T21:08:22","slug":"backrooms-is-a-surreal-atmospheric-chiller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=33633","title":{"rendered":"BACKROOMS is a Surreal, Atmospheric Chiller"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Running Time: 108 minutes<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This feature film from A24 is currently playing at\ntheaters across the country.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The summer movie season may have only just begun, but we\u2019ve\nalready had some big surprises occur at the box office. Namely, a couple of\nlow-budget independent horror films (that weren\u2019t screened for the press) have\nconnected with audiences, and are competing neck and neck with their big-budget\nmajor studio competition. Backrooms<\/em> is one of those titles. It is based\non a hugely popular series of Youtube shorts that was created by a teenager.\nThe shorts feature individuals walking through desolate, empty building\nhallways, only to have figures stalk them from the shadows. It is clear that\nthis film adaptation has captured the imagination of Gen Z moviegoers. But will\nit work for newcomers?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a flailing furniture store\nowner. Recently divorced, angry and suffering from a drinking problem, he\nvisits therapist Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve), who uses her patented\nself-help techniques to try and help him confront his personal issues. Even she\nhas her own psychological problems, having been tormented as a child by an\nunstable mother who frequently kept her locked inside her home. One night,\nClark and his electrician (Philip Granger) discover extra breakers in the store\u2019s\npower distribution box. Clark flips them and then finds himself walking through\nhis store\u2019s basement wall into a labyrinth of odd hallways with scattered\npieces of furniture. It soon turns out that he is not the first to have entered\nthis strange place, and that there may be great danger lurking within. Clark\nattempts to map the place out, and then convince the skeptical Kline of its\nexistence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yes, a great deal of the film features Clark, Kline and a\nfew others, including store employee Kat (Lukita Maxwell) and her boyfriend\nBobby (Finn Bennett), exploring this odd new environment. Despite the fact that\nthe story consists of a lot of aimless wandering around bright, office-like\ncorridors, there is an impressive sense of mood and atmosphere that is\nestablished and maintained throughout. The passageways are familiar but appear\noff-kilter and unsettling, leading into surreal and more claustrophobic areas.\nIn the process, a palpable sense of dread is created. And, at points later in\nthe picture, the backrooms remind one of how an empty business complex might\nlook designed by artist M.C. Escher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Another big plus is the cast, many of whom are all\nexceptional performers that you wouldn\u2019t expect to see in a genre picture.\nEjiofor is compelling as Clark, dealing with rage and frustration at work, as\nwell as a strange compulsion and subtle fascination in searching deeper into\nthe title location. The same goes for Reinsve, who ultimately finds herself\nbeing pulled into the hidden area. They both manage to sell the idea with\nlittle background detail. Mark Duplass has a supporting role as a scientist in\nthe picture, and he isn\u2019t given the best exposition to deliver. Still, he sells\nit well enough to keep one trying to make sense out of the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, anyone purchasing a ticket should know that the\nexplanation as to what is occurring will be unsatisfying. In fact, the film\nfeels like a general concept being fleshed out, more than it is a traditional\nnarrative. One gets the impression that the filmmakers may have felt compelled\nto hint at some sort of explanation and thus, there is a lot of hand-waving\nlate in the movie. A character admits that they don\u2019t really have a full grasp\nof the situation, even throwing in babble about their work on MRIs (Magnetic\nResonance Imaging machines). The more the viewer has to hear about the\nsituation from experts, the sillier it all begins to feel. It\u2019s easy to imagine\nthat, with an original concept that never required a clear rationale, even the\nwriters haven\u2019t fully worked out what is happening. But that may be for the\nbest, since as noted, whenever they try suspension of disbelief begins to set\nin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Clocking in at nearly two hours, Backrooms<\/em> can\u2019t help\nbut feel repetitive at times. And yet, it is still strangely engaging. The\npicture is well-acted and incredibly atmospheric. And it\u2019s a positive to see a\nyoung filmmaker create such a surreal vision, that has managed to draw in the\ngeneral public. In the end, it\u2019s probably best to treat this movie as a\nfrightening hallucination. One that follows characters into a new, unexplained\nsupernatural space that is slowly beginning to fill itself with distorted\nvisions of personal traumas willed to life. If you can forgive the film for its\nunnecessary science jargon late in the story, then this creeper should make a\nlasting impression among anyone willing to go on a hallucinogenic nightmare\ntrip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Running Time: 108 minutes This feature film from A24 is currently playing at theaters across the country. The summer movie season may have only just begun, but we\u2019ve already had some big surprises occur at the box office. Namely, a couple of low-budget independent horror films (that weren\u2019t screened for the press) have connected with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":33638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[217,605,2179,2180,2181,2182,4268,9319,16865,19397,24687],"class_list":["post-33633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-217","tag-a24","tag-backrooms","tag-backrooms-film-review","tag-backrooms-movie-review","tag-backrooms-review","tag-chiwetel-ejiofor","tag-horror","tag-renate-reinsve","tag-surreal","tag-youtube"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33633\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}