Backrooms (2026) Review

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Backrooms is now in theaters, guys. I went to see it tonight and I had a pretty decent time. It was directed by Kane Parsons of the YouTube channel Kane Pixels, the same guy that made a bunch of Backrooms shorts that caught the attention of Hollywood, and that brings us to today, the theatrical release of Backrooms. But, you might have some questions after leaving the theater, and I want to talk about some of those and maybe give some answers. What are those entities in the Backrooms? What happened during Dr. Klein's childhood? And what was that ending? Let's get into it.

[00:00:31]So, as I mentioned before, Backrooms is based on the YouTube shorts by Kane Pixels, also known as Kane Parsons, infamous for being a teenager who did these shorts in Blender and put them on YouTube. Not just that, but we seem to be riding a wave the last couple years, in particular the last 6 months.

[00:00:48]Markiplier, Chris Stuckmann, Corey Barker, and Kane Parsons. That's at least four YouTubers who have had major theatrical releases in the last 6 months. I think Chris Stuckmann's might have been like 7 months ago, but you get my point. Also, if you haven't yet, before we get into this, I do recommend heading over to Kane Parsons' YouTube channel. It's called Kane Pixels.

[00:01:08]There's a link below to all of the YouTube shorts for Backrooms in order that he has uploaded. Check those out.

[00:01:14]It's a great resource, especially if you're wanting more. All of this stuff kind of like ties in directly to what you saw in the movie. Quick warning, I am going to get into spoiler territory in this video, so I do recommend having seen the movie before you watch it. And before I jump right into the explanations, I do want to give some thoughts and opinions on this. Starting with my positives for this, okay? So, so you have Chiwetel Ejiofor as Clark, and this is a guy that I think I saw for the first time in 2012, the movie 2012, in 2009, the year.

[00:01:46]Sorry, that's confusing. It's a very schlocky and pretty awesome disaster movie, but he has a great role in it, and he does awesome in it. His character in this film is [music] just very fascinating. There It's There's lots of layers to it. It's not simple.

[00:02:00]I have very mixed feelings on on who he is and his character and if I like him or not, you know? Would I like this man if I met him? Then you have Renate Reinsve. I'm probably butchering her name to be fair. She's Norwegian. As Dr. Mary Klein. And this is fascinating role. I think Dr. Mary Klein is basically the main character of this movie. Like Clark's character is more of an introduction for her into this world.

[00:02:27]That's definitely how I was feeling by the end of the movie anyway. Couple other characters, they were they were great, too. You know, Phil from the Creep stuff. That's great. The world building and the lore and the psychological horror elements here were all very solid, especially for a directorial debut. The elements of trauma and nostalgia and memories, loved that. The way he actually tied in the VHS found footage element into this movie and had it actually take place in 1990. Not only that, but the design, the set, the art, the couches, the lamps, everything is particular and intentional in a very great way. It's not going constantly out of its way to say, "Hey, this is 1990." But it works in a way that if anything reminds me of Dazed and Confused. Like I forget sometimes that that movie was actually made in the '90s, not in the '70s, you know? Just because it feels so authentic. And that's coming from someone who was born in 1991, so I didn't experience the '70s. I have more thoughts on that, but we'll get into that later. If you know me and you watch my channel, you probably know I'm a huge David Lynch fan. I think there was a fair amount of David Lynch in here. And I'm not even sure if Kane knows who David Lynch is, you know? He's just a He's He's a young man. I'm not saying it was a direct influence. I'm saying it reminded me of that.

[00:03:41]In particular, obviously Twin Peaks and Lost Highway. And I'll tell you why.

[00:03:45]There's a particular line I kept thinking about when I was watching this movie, from Lost Highway.

[00:03:51]>> I like to remember things my own way.

[00:03:53]>> What do you mean by that?

[00:03:55]>> How I remembered them.

[00:03:56]Not necessarily the way they happened.

[00:03:59]>> I mean, I I can't help but think of David Lynch just a little bit while watching a movie like this. Anything that's a little dreamy and a little surreal, that's going to pop into my head. In a Reddit AMA, the way he phrased his experience in nostalgia for the '90s because he's someone who was not alive in the '90s is something that totally makes sense to me.

[00:04:20]He's explained basically like the trickle down of the '90s into the 2000s. This is very much something I experienced as a child who was born in 1991 with the '80s. Everything from even the late '70s and all through the '80s. All that stuff, leftovers, hand-me-downs.

[00:04:38]Like the carpet on the ground was installed in the '80s. You know what I mean? It was a very transitional period, I guess.

[00:04:44]The music here feels like in general, liminal spaces owe something to vaporwave and mallsoft music. I don't really think anyone would argue with me on that. I did enjoy the music on in this movie and Kane himself did some of it and collaborated with another composer. So, now I want to try to answer some of these questions. The first one, what are these entities?

[00:05:05]In lore, they're referred to as still life entities.

[00:05:08]If I recall, we see four in total in the film.

[00:05:12]We have that scene at the dinner table when you see those three. And Clark kind of explains here that they are copies of people that the Backrooms has made.

[00:05:20]Now, what you can infer here is that the first possibility is that the Backrooms copies people who have come inside it, right?

[00:05:27]And then those copies don't leave. And then there's another way to look at it.

[00:05:32]Clark's entity is significantly different than the other ones.

[00:05:35]The Backrooms is clearly creating memories based off of stuff it has itself has not experienced, like the outside world. So, it stands to reason it's using people's memories to create some of this stuff, as opposed to directly the thing itself. It's using other people's memories.

[00:05:53]Honestly, it's a very fascinating concept to even just think about, you know?

[00:05:57]At the end of the movie, we do see Dr. Klein's copy. I have more thoughts on that later, but just the fact that there are copies of each other from basically another dimension sort of.

[00:06:09]Again, I'm going to bring up David Lynch, Twin Peaks, the Black Lodge, doppelgangers. If you don't know, the television show Twin Peaks features another dimension called the Black Lodge. The only way to enter [music] is through fear or love, and inside there are copies of people on the outside, and they try to take their place in the real world. It's just something I kept coming back to because it reminded me of it. So, another question is what happened to Mary during her childhood? Her mother is clearly a shut-in. We noticed with the scene with all the newspapers there. The handprint is obviously significant to her. It kind of represents her lost childhood, or lost innocence.

[00:06:49]The childhood that resembled the backrooms, not only in like style and appearance, like for example, the pile of furniture in front of the door that resembles the pile in the backrooms, but also just the inescapable feeling when you try to escape, someone's stopping you. She sees her childhood home demolished, and the backrooms has copies of this at one point. Copies of the rubble. Now, some of that's clearly just like visions she's having in memories, like her memories colliding with the backrooms almost, you know? The weirdness in the stuff happening in the backrooms is triggering her memories.

[00:07:22]So, some of that stuff I'm not entirely sure was real, obviously. There's just so many ways to try to unpack what's going on in this movie. Another question you might ask yourself after seeing this movie, who and what is A Sync? And honestly, if you want to know more, the best way is to go watch more of the Kane Pixels shorts on the channel. Again, I've linked that in the video description. Go check those out. But basically, as explained in the movie, they used to make MRI machines and now they explore the backrooms and research them. In the shorts, it's revealed at one point they were going to try to use it as like storage and warehousing. And in the shorts, they attempt to map and track things that are going on in there.

[00:08:00]That's where all the cameras, all that stuff that's in there in this movie is from them. And they even experience things like time displacement. There's one of the shorts where a guy goes around a corner and the other guys disappear.

[00:08:12]And then he resurfaces and it's been like months. And they won't let the guy leave. And that is very reminiscent of the ending of the film for me. And if you think about it, that whole concept of just not being able to leave and being trapped is what the movie is about. Mary, trapped in her childhood home.

[00:08:29]Mary, trapped in the backrooms. Mary, [music] now trapped in the A-Sync laboratory. She's like, "Are you guys going to let me leave at the end?" And he's just like, "That's not up to me."

[00:08:40]A lot of this is just theories and how I read the film.

[00:08:43]I would love to hear what you guys think. There are definitely going to be people in the comments down below that know way more about the backrooms by Kane Parsons than I do and the backrooms in general. I've watched a couple of other people's reviews and the thing is most of were saying they hadn't watched any of the shorts and I just thought that was crazy. They're YouTubers.

[00:09:00]Go and watch them. And the last question is what what is that ending? What's going on there? I think there's two or three interpretations, maybe. The obvious being that Mary was carried out of the backrooms by the A-Sync techs.

[00:09:13]She was interviewed by that doctor.

[00:09:15]The last frames we see are of her copy that's been made in the backrooms of her the backrooms memory of her coming full circle with her childhood of being trapped in her house.

[00:09:26]The trauma she endured, man. Like this it's just it's really good writing, I think. And the other option, I think, is a more Twin Peaks inspired uh, know, fantasy theory. The Mary we see interviewed at the end of the film is actually the copy. When the copy escapes, it looks like the real world person.

[00:09:45]And somehow swaps places with them. Now, Mary is trapped in the backrooms as a fraction of herself, a copy, who can't exactly remember who she is. Now, let's be real. This is just me forcing Twin Peaks into the backrooms unnecessarily. Obviously, I think the first answer is more true to the universe.

[00:10:03]And all I can say is I definitely hope that we get more. I hope that he either returns back to YouTube. I hope maybe he works on just a TV series, or does another movie. Either way, he has hinted that he plans to return to this world. So, I'm excited for that.

[00:10:20]Anyway, let me know what you guys thought of the backrooms in the comments down below. I would definitely give this movie a four out of five hearts.

[00:10:28]I had a really good time with it. In concept alone, it's fascinating, but I think this movie really stuck the landing. Quick thank you to my channel members and Patreon subscribers. If you want more Ecto Violence, including exclusive videos and behind-the-scenes content, become a member by clicking the links in the description below.