Backrooms

i wish i was as creative as kane. the backrooms is the culmination of 20 years of urban legends, internet horror, liminal spaces, and everything that made the original concept so fascinating in the first place. such a grossly amazing movie. genuinely one of the most beautiful horror movies i’ve seen in a long time. the backrooms itself is the star of the movie. every room, even the quick flashes, feels wrong in a different way. sometimes terrifying, sometimes weirdly nostalgic, sometimes just beautiful (that christmas tree scene creeped me the FUCK out). the wandering drags in a few places, but honestly that’s kind of the point. you’re supposed to feel lost. i definitely realized the captain clark entity was a metaphor for clark’s coping with his attachment to work and refusal to change. captain clark is genuinely such a disgusting mix of cartoon mascot and uncanny valley. i actually wish the entities were even more disturbing because the designs were so good that i wanted more of them. i loved the performances. from smaller characters like phil to larger ones like mary, everyone hit the sweet spot. i didn’t care much for mary at first, but after clark discovered the backrooms she became one of the strongest characters in the movie. if they do a time skip for backrooms 2, i’d honestly love to see her become the "new phil" and work for async. a lot of people on tiktok seem confused, but the ending made perfect sense to me. i saw it as the backrooms trying to remember mary and forming itself around her the same way it did with clark. it feels less like the backrooms copies people and more like it tries to recreate what it thinks people are. it gets the shape right, but not the details. and that’s probably my favorite thing about the movie. it doesn’t explain everything. async is involved, but there’s still mystery. the backrooms itself still feels unknowable. i really hope kane's future movies keep that feeling. 9/10. would probably be a perfect movie if some of the wandering didn’t drag, but it does an AMAZING job building tension, the plot twists hit, the atmosphere is incredible, and i can’t recommend it enough. i genuinely think people missed out. kane took something that could never have worked as a feature-length movie and somehow made it work.