“It’s beautiful, am I right?”

I should probably start off by saying that I have little to no experience with Kane Parsons’s (Kane Pixels) original YouTube series from back a few years ago. The only thing I really knew about it was that its main way of being an effective horror viewing experience was that it had this sort of “endless” feeling to it. That being said, I did skim through some of the videos that he originally made before watching this film, and I can definitely see why A24 sought him out to make a feature adaptation.

And honestly, I am really loving this trend right now where a bunch of YouTubers, whether self-financed or not, go out with all of their passion and just simply make movies, most of them being horror. It kind of started with Talk to Me a while back (I’m sure there are more that I’m unaware of), and has only become more and more popular as the years have gone by. Last year, we got Shelby Oaks, directed by the film critic, Chris Stuckmann, and this year we have already gotten an adaptation of the video game Iron Lung from Mark Fischbach (Markiplier) and, of course, the one that is doing crazy things at the box office right now, Obsession, from Curry Barker. Whether or not movies like this succeed, it’s just cool to see them happen in the first place.

And honestly, I found Backrooms to be a pretty solid experience, and a very good directorial debut from Kane Parsons. By far, what it does best is probably what you might expect, and that’s the horror. It was a movie that had me on edge for a very decent chunk of the runtime, which honestly, doesn’t happen with me all that often. He really did a good job at creating that “neverending” experience, while having all the dread and tension that you would want from a horror movie like this. There is some really creepy imagery throughout, but Backrooms doesn’t rely on stuff like that or cheap jumpscares to be effective. The most intense scenes are the ones where characters are literally just investigating the backrooms.

I should also note that this film gives you an “off” feeling that is pretty unique from movies that I’ve seen. The best way that I’ve come to describe it is that it’s almost like one of those really weird dreams, or rather, nightmares that you have but don’t remember super clearly or can’t describe very well. It made for a movie that will definitely end up being one of the more memorable ones by the end of the year, even though I expect many other films to be better than it.

It’s also beautifully shot, and I’m not exaggerating by any means. It’s pretty simplistic in nature because the visuals of the YouTube series are the same way, but I was a really big fan of the very prominent yellow color scheme in the backrooms, as well as the color grading as a whole. I don’t always mention cinematography in my reviews, simply because I think that I can get a bit repetitive when I talk about it, but just trust me, this movie is really nicely shot. The way the camera moves really gave off this sense of unease, too, like a jumpscare or something unnerving was about to pop up onscreen, and I really dug it. I also haven’t seen very many found footage films, and I’m not really sure if they would entirely be my thing or not, but there are quite a few found footage segments here and there that were probably the most effective sequences when it comes purely to horror and thrills. Adding to that, one of the more impressive things that stood out to me is that there were some pretty long takes, something that shocked me from this being a directorial debut.

Moving on, the score and sound design were probably the second biggest aspect, behind the camerawork, that made this an effective horror movie. The score isn’t really here all that much, especially in the latter half, but it sounds very atmospheric and moody enough for it to stand out to me, despite being very subtle. The sound design is also very subtle for the most part, which makes for some really cool “edge of your seat” moments whenever it isn’t subtle.

The mixed is something that I find to be a bit predictable when it comes to horror movies, and that is the character writing. I’m not speaking specifically on character development or anything like that, but rather character decisions. It is, unfortunately, one of those horror movies where you really have to suspend your disbelief a hair because some of the things that the characters decide to do are quite simply things that I highly doubt the average person would do. Now, it’s not nearly as bad as I probably made it sound, and it didn’t hinder my enjoyment whatsoever because the thrills were still just as impactful, which is why it isn’t a pure negative.

Where this movie falls flat is whenever it tries to do something non-horror related, which, in this case, Parsons decided to put some thematic depth to what probably should have been a much more straightforward story. I honestly feel weird saying this because thematic depth is definitely one of, if not the most important thing, for making a movie work for me, but in the case of Backrooms, I really didn’t feel that it was needed at all. The first half is pretty straightforward, but partway through it takes a hard turn from being a pure horror thriller to being, from what I could gather, a commentary on trauma, and it just didn’t work in my opinion at all. I like it when a movie throws you off, and I of course would want even a movie like this to not be predictable, but I think that, again, for this kind of premise, it went too far. I never was completely bored or anything close to that, which is why I still land overall pretty positive on the film, but I was definitely puzzled to say the very least.

This sort of thematic stuff continues with the ending, which, aside from a really crazy and extremely effective final shot, also didn’t work for me. I guess it was kind of set up from some parts at the beginning, but it also still felt kind of out of nowhere and didn’t close out this story in a satisfactory manner really whatsoever. I have to be really careful with my words here, but what I will say is that I just simply wanted more out of the ending.

Overall, though, this is an extremely impressive directorial debut from someone so young, and Kane Parsons should be extremely proud of his work here, along with everyone else involved in the production. I see great things ahead for him.