Backrooms (2026)
Directed by: Kane Parsons
Premise: A furniture store owner (Chiwetel Ejiofor) discovers a gateway to a seemingly endless series of hallways and rooms. His therapist (Renate Reinsve) comes looking for him.
What Works: Backrooms is a horror picture that defies easy categorization. While it is sort of a haunted house picture, Backrooms doesn’t rely on spooky settings or gory violence. The horror of Backrooms is in its feeling of uncanniness and disorientation. Much of this movie consists of the characters walking through empty retail space illuminated by overhead fluorescent lights but the execution is nerve-wracking. The rooms and hallways are an extension of the store but something is off, turning the ordinary into a place of dread. The filmmakers skillfully use what we don’t see; there’s implications that something terrible is around the next corner and sound and silence are used effectively. Backrooms is surreal but it has a human quality at its center. The movie focuses on a furniture store owner played by Chiwetel Ejiofor whose life has gone off the rails. He’s divorced and struggling with alcoholism while laboring at a dead-end job when he discovers that his furniture story contains a pathway to a parallel world. Ejiofor’s character sees a therapist played by Renate Reinsve who is coping with her own loss. The performances by Ejiofor and Reinsve are impressive. The film gives each of them the basics of a backstory which Ejiofor and Reinsve run with to create full characters. The premise of Backrooms isn’t just a mystery box device. The exploration of the other side functions as a metaphor of each character’s psychological and emotional struggles.
What Doesn’t: Backrooms is reminiscent of the work of David Lynch, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Andrei Tarkovsky in its dream-like qualities and refusal to offer the audience an explanation. Those qualities are generally to the movie’s benefit. It’s what makes Backrooms fascinating and frightening. That said, viewers who don’t like Lynch, Jodorowsky, and Tarkovsky’s sort of filmmaking probably won’t like Backrooms either. This is a film that is ultimately more invested in its concept than in its characters. That’s especially evident in Backrooms’ abrupt ending. We spend most of the film with Chiwetel Ejiofor’s character but in the final sequence the focus pivots to the therapist played by Renate Reinsve. The way the filmmakers casually discard with Ejiofor’s character is unsettling and dismissive of the audience’s investment in his story.
Bottom Line: Backrooms is a frightening and engaging work of surrealist horror. It functions as a haunted house experience but there is something more going on here. This is the kind of film that probably benefits from multiple viewings, inviting the audience to piece together what they’ve seen.
Episode: #1102 (June 7, 2026)