**WARNING: MILD SPOILERS AHEAD**

Recently I was reminded of the fact that I used to have a blog. Intriguingly this reminder came from someone I met for work, someone who had done their homework and – horror – googled me. I still watch films, read books, and visit museums, but I haven’t written about any of that for a while due to work, health, and life getting in the way. I just wanted to enjoy art when I had the energy. Writing about my experiences felt like another thing on my to do list. I wanted to do less, not more.

Shame, I concluded as clicked on the blog and read some of my old posts. I used to enjoy writing and, if I say so myself, was fairly good at it. So what not take some time to dust off my keyboard and put some of my thoughts into words?

It was raining on Saturday, so I went to the cinema to watch Backrooms. For the uninitiated, this film grew from a creepypasta story about a haunted furniture store into a multifaceted piece of internet lore. Think an endless sequence of windowless rooms inhabited by unknown dangers. Think House of Leaves, liminal space, the uncanny, and David Lynch.

Now the film is, as they say, a major motion picture. It is also the most terrifying film I have ever seen.

The film is rated 15 in the UK, due to being light on the gore and violence front, but it is creepy in a get-under-your-skin way. I slept with the light on for two nights after I’d seen it.

So what is the film about? We meet Clark, owner of a struggling furniture store, left by his wife, slowly spiraling into alcoholism. He’s in therapy but it’s going nowhere. When he discovers a portal in the store’s basement that leads him into a world of yellowish rooms, everything changes. And when he doesn’t come out his psychiatrist Mary decides to go and look for him.

I won’t say too much about what happens next but my response can be summarized as follows:

Hm. Okay.

Maybe you shouldn’t do that.

What’s that?

Honestly, WTF?!

AARRGHHH…

Of course horror depends on characters doing stupid things they really shouldn’t be doing. Like exploring creepy rooms where things go bump in the night. Then again, haven’t we all done something stupid despite knowing it was a terrible idea before we even started?

This is where Backrooms makes some interesting points about trauma and mental health. What if the backrooms are a metaphor for what happens inside our brain? It isn’t too much of a stretch to imagine our unconscious as a convoluted space packed with half-remembered tidbits and age-old fears. Especially when, like Clark, you are a lapsed architect.

Clark starts to spend more and more time in the backrooms because, in his own words, “I like it here.” But what happens if you end up going in too deep? What if you enjoy this strange new world more than your own? What if you get too comfortable in your own misery and can’t find a way out? What if you end up being eaten by what’s eating you?

Mary, on the other hand, has her own traumatic history to deal with. As the film progresses she seems to understand that her psychiatric practice has its limitations. Although she’s been trained to fix people, she realizes that some people can’t be fixed, because they do not want to be. A sad and sobering suggestion.

But if you don’t like the trauma angle, you could also read Backrooms as a parable about modern working life, and how it increasingly consists of repetitive and pointless tasks we complete inside sick buildings. If we manage to get a job in the first place, that is. Maybe the real horror of the Backrooms is work’s endlessness and lack of purpose. Once you’re in, there’s no escape.

Cue yet another Lovecraftian interpretation of the backrooms as cosmic horror, too old and complicated and big for us humans to comprehend. I quite like that suggestion too.

Luckily there’s no need to choose. All these interpretations can exist together, or you can take your pick. For some the film’s ending might feel unsatisfactory, for it lacks a big reveal and clear answers, but I feel it works better that way. The film ends with an interesting take on the Final Girl trope. I still don’t know what it’s supposed to mean but I’ve spent the past few days pleasantly chewing on my ideas.

Backrooms is directed by a very young Kane Parsons, who created a viral YouTube series based on the original creepypasta lore. The film isn’t the final take on the story, it’s merely his version of it, and fans here there and everywhere have been busy unpacking its many easter eggs. No need to worry if you’re not up for that, though. You can still enjoy the film if you’re not familiar with anything that came before.

Some say Parsons is too young to have made the film by himself, and that he must have gotten help from someone more experienced. I say, of course he got help, just like any other film maker. In interviews he comes across as intelligent and articulate, someone intensely devoted to the story he has chosen to tell, and that’s all I need to see in an age of jaded remakes and AI slop. Perhaps the future of truly interesting cinema sits with young independent filmmakers. I certainly enjoy reading success stories about people just having a go and succeeding. Even though films like Obsession, Terrifier and Iron Lung are not really my thing, they could be the start of something new and amazing. Perhaps it’s significant that these are all horror films. Perhaps this says a lot about the times we live in.

Anyway, I’m still thinking about Backrooms several days later, even though I no longer sleep with the lights on. The film is not perfect and some ideas could have been explored in more detail, but if this is Parsons’s first film, I can’t wait to see what he does next.

Photo by Dynamic Wang on Unsplash