BACKROOMS Review: An Impressive Technical Achievement Lost in Its Own Maze

"All these rooms — this place builds them."

If you follow entertainment news even casually, you'll know we're witnessing a remarkable moment in box office history.

In mid-May, the release of the horror-thriller Obsession sent shockwaves through the industry by becoming the first film since Steven Spielberg's Jaws in 1975 to increase its box office earnings after opening weekend rather than follow the traditional pattern of declining week after week.

Even more impressive, the low-budget independent film from first-time director Curry Barker managed to dethrone Disney's The Mandalorian and Grogu, a major Star Wars release starring Pedro Pascal that has struggled since its Memorial Day debut.

This past weekend, history continued as Obsession kept raking in millions while another independent horror sensation joined the conversation. A24's Backrooms, directed by 20-year-old YouTube creator Kane Parsons, opened to more than $80 million at the box office.

Based on the viral internet horror phenomenon that Parsons helped popularize through a series of YouTube shorts, Backrooms is undeniably a monumental achievement in independent filmmaking.

But is it actually good?

For me, the answer is no.

Set during the summer of 1990, Backrooms follows struggling furniture store owner Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who discovers a hidden entrance inside his California showroom leading to an endless labyrinth of "liminal" spaces — endless yellowed hallways, flickering fluorescent lights, and uncanny architecture that feels eerily familiar.

It's a place that visualizes half-forgotten childhood memories: wandering through empty department stores, vacant shopping malls, and endless retail aisles with your parents.

Naturally, something sinister lurks within.

The Backrooms soon reveal themselves as a realm capable of projecting memories, regrets, and personal histories into distorted realities, blurring the line between what is real and imagined.

When Clark disappears, psychologist Mary (Renate Reinsve, who deserves far better material than she's given here) enters the Backrooms in search of him, only to discover a world governed by madness.

At just under two hours, Parsons directs with a confidence and visual sophistication far beyond his years. Credit is certainly due to his own talents, but also to the impressive team of genre veterans backing the project, including producers James Wan, Peter Chernin, Osgood Perkins, and others.

The film looks fantastic.

It sounds fantastic.

Unfortunately, there isn't much beneath the surface.

Transforming the Backrooms mythology into a psychological drama seems like the right approach on paper. The problem is that the characters themselves are painfully underdeveloped.

Clark is essentially a bitter, failed dreamer who sees the Backrooms as a means of achieving the architectural success he never found in life. Mary's storyline fares little better. The film hints at a troubled family history involving her institutionalized mother, but never explores those ideas with any meaningful depth.

None of this is the fault of the actors. Both Ejiofor and Reinsve commit fully to the material. The screenplay simply doesn't give them enough to work with.

The film wants to be both an elevated psychological character study and a sprawling science-fiction horror epic. It introduces the mysterious Async Organization — essentially the film's equivalent of Alien's Weyland-Yutani Corporation — which seeks to map and exploit the Backrooms.

Ironically, that storyline is far more interesting than the central narrative.

The film's strongest sequence arrives during its opening minutes, presented as found footage documenting the horrifying expedition of an unlucky Async researcher. It's tense, unsettling, and captures the uncanny dread that made the original internet phenomenon so effective.

Unfortunately, the film never fully recaptures that momentum.

By the time the climax arrived, I found myself checking my watch. Clark and Mary's final confrontation is well acted but emotionally hollow, and the film spends too much time examining themes it never fully develops.

Thankfully, Backrooms finishes on a relatively strong note. Mary escapes the labyrinth, confronts the film's ultimately unremarkable creature, and encounters Async researcher Phil, played with his usual charm by Mark Duplass.

Perhaps my reaction is influenced by the fact that I was never deeply invested in the original Backrooms mythology. Fans of Parsons' YouTube series have embraced the film enthusiastically, and many viewers familiar with the lore seem to be getting far more out of the experience than I did.

And that's perfectly fine.

Kane Parsons is clearly a filmmaker to watch. His technical ability, visual imagination, and command of atmosphere are undeniable.

I simply found myself more excited about whatever he makes next than I was by my journey through these endless yellow hallways.