There’s a particular kind of dread that comes from empty spaces — fluorescent lights buzzing over yellow wallpaper, hallways that fold back on themselves, the sense that you’ve wandered somewhere you were never meant to be. That feeling is the entire foundation of internet lore, and now it’s the foundation of a studio horror film. Kane Parsons — the filmmaker behind the viral “Kane Pixels” YouTube series — makes his feature debut with Backrooms, and the result is a movie that’s equal parts ambitious swing and cautionary tale about what happens when a niche internet aesthetic gets stretched to feature length.
The Setup
The premise is deceptively simple: a strange doorway appears in the basement of a furniture showroom, and when a therapist’s patient vanishes into it, she has to follow him into a dimension that shouldn’t exist. Chiwetel Ejiofor anchors the film as a man caught somewhere between reality and whatever lies beyond that door, while Renate Reinsve plays the therapist forced to chase him through it. Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, Lukita Maxwell, and Avan Jogia round out a cast that’s stronger than most horror films bother to assemble.
What Works
Parsons clearly understands what made his original web series so unsettling, and he brings that same eye to the big screen. The film’s first hour is genuinely special — a sustained, suffocating stretch where the camera lingers just a beat too long in empty rooms, where the geometry of the space feels subtly wrong in ways you can’t quite articulate. There’s a found-footage sequence in the film’s midsection that ranks among the most effective horror set pieces of the year — the kind of scene that makes you sit up in your seat without you noticing you’ve done it. The sound design deserves special mention too; the hum of those buzzing lights becomes almost a character in itself.
Parsons, who also co-scored the film, brings a real sense of restraint to the direction. This isn’t a movie drowning in jump scares. It’s patient, atmospheric, and confident in its silences — which is a rare thing for a first-time director working with a major studio behind him.
Where It Stumbles
The trouble is that a movie can’t live on atmosphere alone forever, and once the plot has to start explaining itself, some of the mystery drains out of the room. The back half leans harder into conventional horror-thriller mechanics, and the uncanny, dreamlike quality that made the opening stretch so effective gives way to something more familiar. It never fully recaptures those early highs, and by the time the credits roll, you’re left wishing the film had trusted its own weirdness a little longer instead of reaching for more traditional answers.
The cast does what it can with the material — Ejiofor in particular brings real gravity to a role that could have been a hollow vehicle for effects — but a few of the supporting characters feel underwritten, more function than person.
The Verdict
Backrooms is a horror film that understands mood, dread, and the specific terror of empty spaces better than almost anything else released this year. It doesn’t fully stick the landing, and the back half can’t match the sheer unease of the opening, but as a directorial debut it’s a genuinely impressive swing — proof that Parsons’ eye for the uncanny translates from YouTube to the multiplex. If you’ve ever felt a chill scrolling through liminal space photography at 2 a.m., this movie was made for you.
Runtime: 110 minutes Rating: R Director: Kane Parsons Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, Lukita Maxwell, Avan Jogia
Recommended if you liked: Skinamarink, The Vanishing, or spending too long reading about liminal spaces online.