Backrooms (2026) Review!!

Synopsis – After a therapist’s patient disappears into a dimension beyond reality, she must venture into the unknown to save him.

My Take – It should come as no surprise that a series of YouTube shorts posted by a 16‑year‑old in 2022 exploded into a phenomenon, racking up millions of views and a cult following. After all, there’s something deeply unsettling about liminal spaces stretching into infinite nothingness.

And now, in an era where YouTube creators are proving themselves to be excellent filmmakers as well, director Kane Parsons makes his feature debut by expanding that eerie concept with Will Soodik (Homeland, Westworld) into a full‑length A24 production backed by James Wan, Shawn Levy, and Osgood Perkins. For those who feared the found‑footage shorts might collapse under the weight of a big‑budget adaptation starring two Oscar‑nominated actors, rest easy. The result is psychological horror done right: a slow‑burn experience that’s eerie, atmospheric, and far more unsettling than I personally expected.

Blending analog exploration of endless hallways with conventional narrative filmmaking, the film not only raises the bar in visual imagination and spectacle but also digs into themes of emotional paralysis, self‑destructive cycles, and the people consumed by their attempts to escape them.

Sure, not everything lands perfectly, but this could have easily been disposable internet horror, creepypasta stretched to feature length with nothing beneath. Instead, it delivers something haunting, unpredictable, and alive with liminal dread, where every pan of the camera feels like it could reveal something terrifying.

And to give credit where credit is due, director Parsons has given his youthful audience something bizarre, ambitious, and unforgettable.

Set in 1990, the story follows renowned psychologist Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve) and her troubled patient Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a man reeling from a bitter divorce and struggling to keep his independent furniture shop afloat. Nothing in his life seems to work, not even filming a commercial with his assistant manager Kat (Lukita Maxwell) and her boyfriend Bobby (Finn Bennett). Then reality begins to fracture. A strange lighting malfunction inside the warehouse reveals an invisible doorway into another dimension: a ceaseless maze of yellow office corridors, illogical architecture, flickering luminescent purgatories, and warped spaces that shift the deeper one travels.

Curiosity mutates into obsession, and Clark is drawn toward these mysterious rooms with the pull of compulsion and self‑destruction, lured by the promise of escape from a world where he has run out of excuses. When Dr. Kline, alarmed by his erratic behavior and disappearance, goes searching for him, she too becomes trapped in the same impossible geography. Professional concern gives way to personal confrontation as she faces memory, fear, and disorientation in a labyrinth that refuses to obey the rules of reality.

At this point it is clear that director Kane Parsons has mastered the world he created. He understands exactly what made his videos resonate, and he knows how to toy with audiences until they sit upright in their seats. The film takes its time, crawling through zooms and building its score beat by beat until each scene swells into a crescendo.

The pacing, mood, and tension are what make the film work. There are stretches where you forget the story that led the characters into this alternate dimension, because the focus shifts entirely to the moment itself—each step toward whatever waits beyond the next room. And it is genuinely terrifying. Here, director Parsons wisely avoids over‑explaining the mythology.

The film gestures toward the larger folklore surrounding the Backrooms phenomenon, including a brief appearance by Mark Duplass as a scientist seemingly tied to Async, the shadowy research organization from Parsons’ original web series, but the mechanics remain opaque. The less tangible this dimension becomes, the more unnerving it feels. Like the YouTube shorts, Clark is consumed by the vastness of the hallways and the stained‑yellow walls lit by flickering fluorescent lights meant for office buildings. The strangeness overwhelms him, driving him to research in search of meaning.

Parsons’ earlier shorts hinted at his skill behind the camera, alternating between found footage and omniscient perspectives. The feature leans more heavily on traditional filmmaking but still injects subjectivity into the lens. This duality heightens tension when monsters linger just off‑screen, while also allowing the audience to breathe in the surrealist aesthetics. Every set was built for the production, and the tactile quality is immediate. The most astonishing aspect is how the nightmare architecture becomes a metaphor for memory, grief, paralysis, and the seductive pull of retreating deeper into destructive pain.

Director Parsons is sharp in showing how people become trapped inside loops of internal narration by rehearsing grievances, failures, humiliations, and betrayals until those thought patterns harden into walls. The ending is intentionally baffling. Viewers may not know whether to laugh or recoil, but it is undeniably a choice, and one that lingers long after the credits roll.

Performance wise, Chiwetel Ejiofor delivers an excellent turn. He embodies the listless life of a man who thought he had secured his future, only to watch it slip away. From start to finish he tries his best to hold things together, while hinting at an uneasy menace beneath the surface. His suffering is palpable, and Ejiofor shapes Clark into a tragic figure.

Renate Reinsve matches him with equal conviction, and together they carry what is essentially a two‑hander through its most demanding stretches. Yet the script does not give us enough to truly connect with Mary beyond the familiar “mental illness can destroy a family” thread. Lukita Maxwell and Finn Bennett also bring in solid supporting turns. On the whole, ‘Backrooms’ is a deeply affecting horror film that manages to be both deeply affecting and genuinely terrifying.