it's hard to capture ideas. it's hard to write things down. the visions in our heads are just plain hard to convey to others

and, to put it bluntly — the appeal of the backrooms, and, by much cooler extension, the entire liminal spaces concept, is almost wholly visual. it's an online collectivist movement — it doesn't have a single concrete lore. kane parsons is but a drop in the bucket. it's like corecore. you know it when you see it, but — as the movie is so disappointingly aware of — it's hard to describe with language

... so putting a story on it was never going to work. i'm shocked they actually went such a direct route

if you're going to add a story — put in some effort. build a mystery. i'm annoyed as hell by severance, but severance is miles better at evoking the feeling i SHOULD have gotten watching backrooms. this is a terrible, B movie plot. it reads like a youtuber who came straight from minecraft peace vs war civilization videos took their first philosophy class and wrote a screenplay. it sucks. why not lean into the exploration bit?

person enters. spaces begin benign but uncanny and slowly get creepier. evidence of the existence of others starts to emerge, then, suddenly, hard to get out while being chased. boom there's a more fitting plot for this type of thing

so then, why make it plot focused at all? why not fly on vibes alone, like blade runner 2049, or koyaanisqatsi? because a shit ton of money was put into marketing this thing and it has to have a whiff of a coherent story in order to stay atop the box office? maybe. or was our humble teenage prodigy not actually given full reigns to create a properly evocative backrooms experience? who knows

my pitch — why throw a plot on at all? the visuals are somehow deprioritized here. how is that possible?? exploration is stuck in the office building. we only get a teensy bit of pool vibes, an undeniably goated backrooms concept. where are my indoor shopping malls at? where are my non euclidean spaces at? where are my indoor water parks? where are my beautiful, expansive wide shots at? can we really not "show not tell" our way through the most visual concept ever? how does this set feel so small?

and where is the creativity? i'm far from a superfan — but how have i seen everything i saw here already? there's... nothing new here. the single a-ha moment was the head in the laundry pile. single! ugh

someone could have made a better version of this if they just played some backrooms inspired games and screen recorded them. a film in unreal engine would do better. hell, a no commentary playthrough of the second half of portal 2 would have done better

hated the handheld shots, i'm sorry. show me the liminal spaces in high quality, bro!!!

music was mid, missed opp. obsession dunking on your eerie ambeint soundtrack is embarrassing af

cool that a single image spawned a movie. but man does this feel cash grabby. i could have made a more tasteful movie than this. gg parsons you got alphamogged by a dude named curry with no source material

and i'm upset on renate's behalf

it's hard to capture ideas. it's hard to write things down. the visions in our heads are just plain hard to convey to others

and, to put it bluntly — the appeal of the backrooms, and, by much cooler extension, the entire liminal spaces concept, is almost wholly visual. it's an online collectivist movement — it doesn't have a single concrete lore. kane parsons is but a drop in the bucket. it's like corecore. you know it when you see it, but — as the movie is so disappointingly aware of — it's hard to describe with language

... so putting a story on it was never going to work. i'm shocked they actually went such a direct route

if you're going to add a story — put in some effort. build a mystery. i'm annoyed as hell by severance, but severance is miles better at evoking the feeling i SHOULD have gotten watching backrooms. this is a terrible, B movie plot. it reads like a youtuber who came straight from minecraft peace vs war civilization videos took their first philosophy class and wrote a screenplay. it sucks. why not lean into the exploration bit?

person enters. spaces begin benign but uncanny and slowly get creepier. evidence of the existence of others starts to emerge, then, suddenly, hard to get out while being chased. boom there's a more fitting plot for this type of thing

so then, why make it plot focused at all? why not fly on vibes alone, like blade runner 2049, or koyaanisqatsi? because a shit ton of money was put into marketing this thing and it has to have a whiff of a coherent story in order to stay atop the box office? maybe. or was our humble teenage prodigy not actually given full reigns to create a properly evocative backrooms experience? who knows

my pitch — why throw a plot on at all? the visuals are somehow deprioritized here. how is that possible?? exploration is stuck in the office building. we only get a teensy bit of pool vibes, an undeniably goated backrooms concept. where are my indoor shopping malls at? where are my non euclidean spaces at? where are my indoor water parks? where are my beautiful, expansive wide shots at? can we really not "show not tell" our way through the most visual concept ever? how does this set feel so small?

and where is the creativity? i'm far from a superfan — but how have i seen everything i saw here already? there's... nothing new here. the single a-ha moment was the head in the laundry pile. single! ugh

someone could have made a better version of this if they just played some backrooms inspired games and screen recorded them. a film in unreal engine would do better. hell, a no commentary playthrough of the second half of portal 2 would have done better

hated the handheld shots, i'm sorry. show me the liminal spaces in high quality, bro!!!

music was mid, missed opp. obsession dunking on your eerie ambeint soundtrack is embarrassing af

cool that a single image spawned a movie. but man does this feel cash grabby. i could have made a more tasteful movie than this. gg parsons you got alphamogged by a dude named curry with no source material

and i'm upset on renate's behalf

Cap’n Clark on some crazy shit

Cap’n Clark on some crazy shit

the half abandoned theater we watched this in felt like if you described a movie theater to someone from memory and asked them to draw it

the half abandoned theater we watched this in felt like if you described a movie theater to someone from memory and asked them to draw it

Unsettling….and my popcorn was stale so that was not it

Unsettling….and my popcorn was stale so that was not it

I wanted this to be more liminal / found footage horror, and would have been much happier if it was just a scary movie focused on exploring and getting lost in the backrooms. Instead we went through this whole psychological rigamarole and I left the theater with much more to unpack than ideal.

My main takeaway from the movie was that memories are very powerful, and if you choose to live in the past then your grief and negativity (in this case literally) will eat you alive. I’m not really interested in diving deeper on this one.

We also got interviewed after the film and that was pretty fun.

I wanted this to be more liminal / found footage horror, and would have been much happier if it was just a scary movie focused on exploring and getting lost in the backrooms. Instead we went through this whole psychological rigamarole and I left the theater with much more to unpack than ideal.

My main takeaway from the movie was that memories are very powerful, and if you choose to live in the past then your grief and negativity (in this case literally) will eat you alive. I’m not really interested in diving deeper on this one.

We also got interviewed after the film and that was pretty fun.