“Backrooms” review: Kane Parson's liminal horror is a rare feat

Imagine you step into a room for the first time. It's liminal, and you can't figure out what to make of it. You walk further in and start to spot things that feel familiar, yet you can't articulate what to make of them.

This is the unsettling mood that Kane Parsons achieves throughout "Backrooms", his debut feature film based on his online series of the same name. It follows Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who discovers a hidden room in his business establishment. As he goes deeper, he will soon realize there's no escaping.

"Backrooms" is mysterious, eerie, and surprisingly restrained. The film finds its horror in the ambiguity of its spaces. When we get to see a new room for the first time, it is told entirely from a subjective point of view reminiscent of playing a video game.

But "Backrooms" isn't your loud, frequent jump-scare horror movie. It is rich in emotion and imagination in service of its characters.

Apart from stellar performances from Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve and confident direction from Kane Parsons, "Backrooms" has impressive world-building through its vast production design. Parsons and his crew built enormous practical sets across four sound stages. You can feel the sheer size of the backrooms, which go on and on. The detail in each of them is quite a feat. This kind of technical craftsmanship is often missed in many horror films, even from more established filmmakers, so for Parsons to realize this in his first feature film, no less, is an achievement.