Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass, Lukita Maxwell, Finn Bennett Written by: Will Soodik Directed by: Kane Parsons
Watching recent ventures into feature film by YouTubers Markiplier, Curry Barker, and Kane Parsons, a few common strengths are immediately clear—namely production design, lighting, and sound.
In other words, they know how to create atmosphere (often with very limited budgets). So you’re seeing environments that not only looks intricate, interesting, and lived-in but that give you unmistakable vibes. They’ve learned to leverage the tools of the medium to make you feel uncomfortable, uneasy, claustrophobic, etc.
What they all seem to be less good at (to varying degrees) is story and character. This makes sense since telling a story in short form is very different than doing so in long form. It’s fragments versus full arcs.
I say all this because Backrooms, about a troubled furniture store owner (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who finds an entrance to a seemingly limitless space, is all atmosphere and no story. It shows you some creepy shit to be sure, but doesn’t take its characters on anything close to a complete or fulfilling journey.
Like Barker—who I should be clear both wrote and directed his movie Obsession, which is infinitely stronger on story and character than this one—Parsons has the goods as a director. The way he takes us into the backrooms, visualizes that space, and integrates found-footage are all strong. He also gets solid work from Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve (last seen Oscar-nominated for Sentimental Value) even though they don’t have a whole lot to work with.
The character failings are where the movie ultimately comes unraveled. After the discovery and exploration of the backrooms (where the movie is at its best), the script (which was not written by Parsons but by Will Soodik) makes the curious decision to not really do anything with our main characters. The people simply become secondary to the place.
And maybe that’s the point. But as the movie wears on, it becomes a problem. Without a human story to follow/root for/fear for, we become untethered, just drifting around the backrooms. And you can only look at so much yellow wallpaper.