Backrooms
- 4 minutes ago
- 3 min read
In 1999, the original "Blair Witch Project" became a massive box office smash, earning a quarter of a billion dollars on a $60k budget. It also created the "found footage" genre.
Based on early audiences, BACKROOMS is likely to be a massive hit as well, but I can't get over it's biggest sin, which is stranding two of our finest actors in a dull tale that only truly engaged me in its last 20 minutes.
The film is the brainchild of 21 year old, British/American YouTuber Kane Parsons. His concept started online as a series of short films. A24 approached Parsons about making a feature film version when he was 19, making him the studio's youngest director.
On any level, Kane accomplishing what he did here at his age is an amazing feat. Kudos. And there are moments of the film, especially in its conclusion, that show promise and a clever sense of horror and suspense.
But they are fleeting and its a long path to get there.
Chiwetel Ejiofor (The Martian, Doctor Strange) plays Clark, a divorced owner of a cheap furniture store, Cap'n Clark's Ottoman Empire, that never seems to have a customer. It is packed with ugly, bad furniture, a lot of BIG SALE! banners and signs offering to finance. We see Clark doing two primary things in the store, calculating incoming bills and sleeping in one of the beds on the showroom floor. His TV commercials are hilariously bad, playing a peg legged pirate in a KMart level costume and a fleeting accent, imploring all you mateys to come down and load up on the furniture booty.
We see Clark meeting his therapist, Mary, played by Renate Reinsve, who was Oscar nominated last year for her brilliant performance in "Sentimental Value".
We glimpse Mary's home life as she sits eating a TV dinner on a tray in front of the same style cheap TV as Clark, as her own TV commercial comes on touting her self-help CDs.
Beyond those intriguing bonds the two share and a couple intriguing moments during their office visits, these two fine actors are stranded in the material.
One day, exploring the basement section of his showroom, Clark finds a portal in the wall that leads to the BACKROOMS.
A seemingly endless series of rooms and corridors, they all share the same yellow hue and a very mild sense of foreboding. And I mean mild.
Much of the film seems like a leisurely stroll through the art exhibit of a mad architect. Oh, wait a minute........
Eventually, Clark becomes more adventurous in his exploration, mapping this other world just beyond his furniture store. Some of the audience around me seemed to gasp and leap at every minor scare. I found the first 90 minutes very tame when it comes to horror.
Lukita Maxwell (Shrinking) and Finn Bennett (Warfare) add some much needed fun as Clark's only employee Kat and her boyfriend Bobby. When Clark shows them what he's found and they Bobby down a rope "Poltergeist"-style down a steep corridor, the film finds a brief spark and some laughs. More Kat & Bobby please!
Clark confides in Mary what he's found and when he stops coming to their sessions, she heads to the store, finds the portal and enters the other world herself.
Like "Blair Witch", I spent most of the film wondering what all the buzz was about.
This is an intriguing concept that seems inadequately tapped. Until the 90 minute mark, my biggest challenge was to stop from falling asleep for long stretches.
Parsons seems to be channeling a bit of "The Shining" and tries to unleash his own manic finale to release all the "built up" suspense (or tedium) of the film.
My favorite scene in the film is when Mary has entered the corridors and just a tiny glimpse of something peeking out around the corner nearest her slides back into hiding in the background. It gave me chills. There are so many corners in the BACKROOMS. Why is there only one true creepy moment?
Ejiofor and Reinsve are brilliant actors, stranded in another dimension and given so little to do for most of the film. Wasting these two fine performers seems like a cinematic crime.
The manic sequence at the end of the film is a release, but then its followed by a quiet conclusion that left half of our sold out audience marveling and the other half like me with a resounding "meh...."
The recent film "EXIT 8" is an obvious cousin of the concept. That film pulled me in from its opening moments, kept me on the edge of my seat and I became part of the mystery.
Sadly, BACKROOMS left me thinking about the theater exit sign for most of its padded 110 minute running time.
It gets a C for effort.
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