Review - BACKROOMS (2026) #backrooms

Añadido: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]And another filmmaker who started on YouTube makes another strong horror debut. I can't decide if that's the universe trying to tell me something or the universe trying to set me up for a prank.

[00:00:24]Yeah, but no, for real. What surprises me most about Back Rooms is that this is legit a real movie. And at some point, I think that kind of has to stop surprising me. And what I mean by real movie is it would have been very easy for this to be just another piece of found footage [ __ ] It's not to say that there are no good found footage movies, but most found footage movies, and I think we can admit, most found footage movies, most screen life movies suck ass. They're very easy to cheap out and make and look like you put in effort on loweffort [ __ ] because it's hard for most people to differentiate actual effort from no effort in that genre. And this started out as a found footage YouTube series from uh the creator. And what is most shocking about this is that they have gone in completely the opposite direction for the movie. And that has kind of been the consistent thing with a lot of the last two years worth of YouTube filmmaker to filmmaker filmmaker transitions. You know, Markiplier's movie was a real movie.

[00:01:29]Stuckman's movie was a real movie. It really seems like a very smart decision on a lot of the YouTuber quote unquote to filmmaker films where they've gone in right from the get-go and saying, "Okay, no, we are going to break this stereotype before it even becomes a stereotype and step up and make real stuff where even if we started what we're doing, in this case, Kane is adapting his series that started out as found footage based on creepy pasta memes, but going to go completely in the opposite direction and make real film making old school which is not to say that found footage can't be real film making but you know what I mean name actors strong cinematography like this looks more like a real movie than a lot of other A24 movies and that feels like a very deliberate choice to show up and say no no no no this came to play and you do not have to know or care that this is based on Gen Z internet [ __ ] to get into it. It's probably better if you don't. I have a sneaking suspicion that the like original core fan base for backrooms, like people who don't need to be told what backrooms is to go and see this will actually turn on it a little bit because it's not a lore dump for the original material itself. You know, this is an adaptation of something that runs in about 5 to 10 minute increments on YouTube and is meant to be stopped and rewound and looked for clues and scan the code and play it backwards, that kind of thing, which is fine. Nothing wrong with that. But this is definitely not that. This is a beginning, middle, and end threeact structure strong horror story in the classical tradition of what if an unfortunate scary thing happened to a guy? Wouldn't that be spooky? told with classical cinematography and mostly one to two characters at a time walking around being freaked out by scary noises and spooky special effects. So if you're coming into this as one of the original watching people react to scary videos on the internet fans of the original series waiting to find out more about Async and the lore and all of the backgrounds and look for oh whose name tag is it? This really isn't that movie. This is a singular standalone thing about a guy who slips through a wall into a middle-aged dude version of that uh Twilight Zone episode, A Little Girl Lost, or if you're, you know, closer to like my age, uh that Simpsons episode that parodyied it where Homer was in 3D.

[00:04:07]This is more on those lines. You can walk into this uh not having a child to ask what the hell the backrooms is and still get a totally good movie out of this. So, if you've been seeing these posters and hearing your uh children or grandchildren talk about, "Ooh, the backrooms. We got to see that. I love that." And you're asking, "What the mother [ __ ] is the backrooms and why am I supposed to care?" Good news. You don't have to know why you're supposed to care. It's just a really good spooky movie. Uh but for your mification, uh the back rooms originated as a creepy internet self-generated self-aware urban legend inspired by this phenomenon from old video games. You can like accidentally make your character fall through the landscape and end up outside of the part you're supposed to be playing in, and it looks kind of creepy when you do cuz you're not supposed to be outside of that and see the outside parts of a video game. Wouldn't it be spooky if reality wasn't real and you fell through a hole in reality and could like see the outline of God's design or or whatever? You know, what if reality was actually just a shoe box diarama and you fell out of your diarama? Basically, a version of that. If you're a little bit more classically educated, what if you fell outside the Bertold breed play and could see that you were in a Berthole Breed play? You didn't think you were going to watch some schmucks YouTube video today and hear a Berthole Breck reference. There you go. And I hope you enjoyed it because I had to do like several different takes to properly pronounce Berthold Breck with my Boston ass accent. But anyway, the premise to this movie version, which is a completely new or possibly prequel or alternate time take on the YouTube story that this is all based on, is about Chibel Edgio. He's playing a furniture store owner in a point in time and location, which I probably shouldn't spoil because people who care about the lore from the YouTube show, uh, will probably want to just discover these things for themselves. But this does have a distinct place and time. Uh, seems to matter for some of the symbolism and, uh, connections and metaphors that I think that this is dealing with because when I saw it, I was, "Oh, okay. This is where and when this is taking place. Cool. Okay, I think I get what this is trying to say or at least be about." Uh but he's a a furniture store owner who has fallen on hard times and he discovers in the basement of his store overnight basically uh a hole in the wall that shouldn't be there and an extra room in his store that seems to go on forever.

[00:06:35]Like the literal to the title, the back rooms of his store.

[00:06:39]>> Oh, that's why they call it that.

[00:06:41]>> Except it might not just be the back rooms to his store. It might be the back rooms to every store or every other place in the planet. Like if the entire world, the entirety of reality had a backstage to it and he can now access, but he's not supposed to be there and maybe he's not alone there and it feels weird to be there. It doesn't seem exactly right. It's all based on the concept of the the creepy factor of this is based on the idea of liinal spaces.

[00:07:18]The idea of areas like uh like a parking lot doesn't look right unless it's full of cars. A room like a stadium doesn't look right unless it's full of people.

[00:07:29]And the back rooms, all of these areas that he keeps exploring and that we get to go along as they explore are all places that just don't look right because you can tell they've been emptied out or partially emptied out of whatever people or furniture or furnishings were supposed to go there and they look a little bit like they've been iterated through a couple times to the point where whatever this was supposed to be, it isn't anymore. And there's something creepy about that.

[00:07:58]like when you walk through an unfernished building and it just doesn't look like it's supposed to. And that itself is creepy and it's something that you wouldn't necessarily think you could build an entire feature around. Like it makes sense that this was a scary urban legend internet thing that was entirely built around still images and found footage because can you really make Yeah. Unfurnished buildings are spooky and empty lots are creepy and a little bit sad in a scary way. Can you make that creepy as an image for an entire time? It turns out, yeah, you can if you also layer symbolism and metaphor for what that feeling means and why spaces end up like that and what that says about human psyche and what is happening to people in the world that cause us to feel like that on top of it. And once it clicked in for me, it's like, "Oh, okay.

[00:08:53]I see what you're doing on top of that."

[00:08:55]It gets there. And there's also an entirely new twist on all of this material that creeps right in at the third act. And I won't spoil it. Won't say another word about it, but I kind of went, "Oh, okay. Yes. Yeah. All right.

[00:09:09]Cool. I see where you're going. I was right about what the setting and the timing of this means. Cool. Go. Let's go." And it really works. And what's interesting is this is more creepy than scary. It would be very easy to make a jump scare movie out of this because it's a movie about walking around mostly empty spaces and then realizing, huh, I was already creeped out when I thought this was empty, but now I think maybe I'm not alone and that's more creepy. So now this has gone from creepy to scary because someone or something else is in here with me. But it really is content to be almost a melancholy, eerie, gets under your skin and doesn't want to go away version of itself. Much more so than a jump scare monster movie. Even though it is a little bit of that, a little bit. Again, I don't want to spoil what the actual eventual, oh, that's what's going on to the degree that they're willing to tell you that's what's going on version of this movie is. But it's fascinating realizing going back I was like, you know, there's not that much horror to this horror movie.

[00:10:19]It's a scary movie. I would stop short of saying it's horrifying. I was not necessarily horrified or terrified, but I was frightened and unnerved. But in the overall content and texture of it, the main thing that would separate this from like the average episode of like goosebumps or are you afraid of the dark is that it's about depressed middle-aged people as opposed to nervous, anxious teenagers. And that is an interesting place to go and an interesting vibe to take for a horror movie because this could very easily have splattered some gore around and thrown some more jump scares at the screen and have been something closer to the vibe of, you know, the performative horror of like the Ariost vibe that uh A24 has generally been more comfortable with.

[00:11:12]And I'm very glad that it didn't. I'm not necessarily sure that there's a lot of meat on the bone because having seen other movies that work in this vibe and hit this vibe. Once the place and time and general aesthetic of it kicked in, I bet you, okay, I know what this movie's about. I understand where we're going at these characters, apart from one or two swerves where I was, okay, you know what? That could have gone one way and I'm glad it didn't instead. I'm glad we're doing a little bit different things. It's not the newest vibe in the world, but to the generation that it's largely aimed at, it will be. Most of the critiques that you could throw at any other horror movie in terms of why do they keep going in there? Why are you going back? Why don't you just go away do apply here and same unfortunate answer as always. Yeah, I don't think there's an adequate reason for why they keep doing that. But that's a criticism that I can throw at any spooky movie.

[00:12:03]This is strong stuff. It's spooky. It's creepy. It is exceptionally well directed as a debut feature. I can't wait to see what this guy does next with it. As it stands now, call this 7 out of 10. Check it out.

[00:12:44]Heat.