Backrooms is one of those movies which start off wonderful and then take a huge nosedive into an ending that sneaks up on you with no resolution. Granted horror movies often conclude with open ending but I wouldn’t even call this “open.” It feels more like the financing gave out and they scrambled to assemble a ending.
In fact, I think part of the reason it reportedly made so much money is people saw it a second or third time hoping for something they missed. Is there a missing reel? Did they zonk out at one point or have to go to the restroom and miss something?
I can say no to all those answers. Unlike the horrible Obsession, Backrooms has some good talent with Chiwetal Ejiofer and Renate Reinsve. Based on the Backrooms website and creepypasta story, it’s mostly set in another realm that resembles the interiors of office buildings and furniture/appliances stores from the late 1960s and 1970s. And Kane Parsons as director and Jeremy Cox as cinematographer give off a ominous vibe just by using flourenscent lighting and puke-yellow carpet and walls.
But the movie falls apart in the second half with a simple climax that feels like a transition scene and a mid-credit scene that is overlong and lacks information. However at that point, those who have lost interest will turn it off or leave the theater with a feeling of “Is that all?” If you have any knowledge of the 1965 movie Monsters a Go-Go, it feels like that.
Set sometime in the early to mid-1990s, Clark (Ejiofor) is a middlea-aged furniture store owner in a strip mall somewhere in the San Jose, Calif. area. Struggling with drinking, he discusses things with his therapist, Mary (Reinsve). He wanted to be an architect but had to put that on hold as his marriage is failing apart. He actually is sleeping in the basement of the furniture store.
With little business and forced to humiliate himself appearing as a pirate in a commercial, he downs beers as he channel surfs at night. But there are problems with electricity going out. One night, Clark notices a vertical glea. of light coming through a slit in the wall. This is a portal to the Backrooms.
This section of the movie is thrilling and I was hoping it would build to something. And if it had ended here, it might have ended with a bang. Yet it suffers the same problem as Obsession. Both movies run about the same length but they fall apart because the concept can’t hold up to the run time.
But even when Mark Duplass pops up as Phil, a research scientist for an organization monitoring the Backrooms, he never adds anything to except exposition that functions more like a cop-out. Needless to say, the $400 million box office on a mere $10 million budget has led Parsons to focus on a sequel.
Maybe Parsons was trying to do more of a David Lynchian movie. Yet, Lynch would have done it in such a way it would leave a few interpretations. This movie is more like a cheat that can’t build on its set-up. It’s a shaggy dog story basically. And if it’s a set up for a sequel, I can’t fathom why anyone would want to see it.
What do you think? Please comment.
