‘Backrooms’ Review: Liminal Space, Infinite Terror (Excellent Movie)

Arts & Culture, Film & TV

Backrooms (2026)
– 110 minutes
– Directed by Kane Parsons- Written by Will Soodik- Based on Kane Parsons’s The Backrooms- Starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, Lukita Maxwell- Cinematography by Jeremy Cox- Edited by Greg Ng- Music by Edo Van Breemen and Kane Parsons- Opening theatrically on May 29 courtesy of A24
High on scares, low on carbs
I’m not inclined to argue that ignorance, be it about matters of grand sociopolitical importance or macro-sized emotional consequence, is bliss. However, as the industry has aggressively tilted toward adaptations of “stuff” that was popular decades ago, I’m now relishing the notion of reading news related to an upcoming movie adaptation of a game or book that’s too new for me to have played or read. Meanwhile, as the “thing to movie” pipeline increasingly focuses on pleasing an existing fanbase, I find myself in a weird position of not wanting to know too much about a given source material before seeing the movie. Whether it’s not rewatching Anchorman or Twister before seeing Anchorman 2 or Twisters or not educating myself on 2000s-2010s Mortal Kombat mythology before Mortal Kombat II opened, I now find myself trying to do less research and/or less retrospective viewing to better evaluate whether or not a given film stands on its own.
I don’t know a damn thing about creepypasta beyond the unfortunate realization that it features no scary spaghetti or violent vermicelli. And I did not read or watch Kane Parsons’s The Backrooms before seeing his theatrical adaptation. Was it “faithful” to the source material? I haven’t a clue. Is it filled with fan-targeted IP-specific Easter Eggs? Uh… probably? What I can say is that, as a 46-year-old film critic who walked in mostly blind, Backrooms is the real thing. It’s a visually dynamic, exquisitely acted and almost oppressively disconcerting fright flick. Moreover, coming on the heels of “but the fans!” flicks like Michael, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, A24’s Backrooms refuses to pander to its fanbase at the expense of the uninitiated. It refuses to use its “high-profile movie based on a thing your kids like” existence as an excuse for mediocrity or to ignore the nuts and bolts of cinematic storytelling.