Backrooms

(Warning: While I won’t talk directly about the plot there are SOME spoilers!) A LOVE LETTER to YouTube ARGs, Analog Horror, Liminal Space, Found Footage and Unfiction fans! First off, right off the bat, the colour grading for both the normal world and the backrooms was phenomenal, and the intense, cooler-toned colours of the normal world (particularly the sets themselves) had a doll-like feel that was hard to place, which paired with the almost suffocating warm yellow tones from the Backrooms world created a very strong disparity between the two worlds. The soundtrack was PHENOMENAL, especially the usage of songs popularly used within other found footage and ARG media, and the usage specifically of Everywhere at the End of Time and minor references to the albums themselves was a TREAT, and the original scoring was INCREDIBLE, there was a part where a character was screaming and the screams slowly melded into the soundtrack itself, and oftentimes the original songs worked perfectly as a minor compliment to their scenes. The sets as well were absolutely GORGEOUS, and a lot of the sets themselves very clearly referenced sets from the whole fan-universe that sprouted up from the original series, most notably the apartment complex aka Level 188 like in those silly memes where a Kanye jpeg chases you, the “poolrooms” aka Level 37 in the fan-universe, and the “neighborhood level” aka Level 94.  Some works and characters that I believe the director drew inspiration from are the Rat man from Portal, House of Leaves (obviously), the Ikea SCP (SCP-3008), The Boiled One Phenomenon, This House has People in it and MyHouse.Wad, particularly with the characters lives having a heavy influence on the world itself. While it was obviously VERY fanservicey, as a HUGE fan of the whole overarching genres used I was EATING IT UP! ESPECIALLY when they kept giving glimpses of Mark Duplass, the KING of our era for found footage horror on a cinematic scale. I kept gasping every time they showed hints of him on screen as someone who went into the film blindly. The story itself was a little clunky, but the atmosphere, experience and sheer DREAD watching the movie itself was enough to keep me glued to the screen, and stare around in the background for any blink-and-you-miss-it moments. My one big gripe with the movie was the “entity” itself; I’ll always be a fan of the way SFX gods like Rob Blottin will obscure their monsters somewhat to preserve the mystery and horror of their creations, and prevent a closer more scrutinous eye from noticing flaws in the creation of said monsters itself. Despite this, the monster designed worked PHENOMENALLY with the plot itself, I just truly wish it was hidden more, as the tell-don’t-show aspects of the monster at the beginning worked wonders If you’re a fan of any of the genres or works listed in the review, this movie was TAILOR MADE for you!  I sincerely hope more of these movies are made, and look forward to new horror works released by Kane Parsons both on the big screen and on YouTube!