(***1/2)
“Get the hell out of there!” If audiences don’t say it, they’re thinking it. That’s the mark of a psych-horror thriller that’s done its job. Scare the weak. Rattle the strong. Leave no one behind. This fright fest is a credit to the genre.
A weird doorway materializes in the basement of Cap’n Clark’s Ottoman Empire, a tacky furniture store. “Don’t go in,” said no one. That’s the setup in a very innovative script by Kane Parsons, a YouTube creator. A store owner named Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave) takes the bait and enters a catacomb, a maze of pale-yellow hallways and rooms that don’t make sense. Clark asks, “Hello. Is there anyone there?”
His shrink Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value) thinks he’s delusional, but then why wouldn’t she—that’s her job to sniff out issues. Mary says, “Let’s go back to the night Barbara left you.” Something eats at Clark’s soul. Like he’s being called to answer both the inner challenge and the outer one. His curiosity writes a check his ass can’t cash. And so, the horror. He enters another world.
Parsons gamely uses his popular web series Backrooms as the jump-off. The series is set in an alternate dimension of interconnected liminal spaces—abandoned commercial offices lit by fluorescent lights, with tile ceilings, cubbyholes and filled with cryptic imagery and unsettling sounds. Screenwriter Will Soodik (Westworld) aids Parsons in the big screen adaptation, and he knows his way around strange places. They melt the series, which received 216 million views, into a one-hour, 50-minute tightly woven storyline that looks innocent at first. Like a guy down on his luck sees an opportunity to explore and gets caught in the wrong places. Wait. Just you wait. At some point the oddness turns into outright horror seasoned by skewed Inception-like dimensions.
Production designer Danny Vermette, art director Alan Derksen and set decorator Trevor Johnston should take a deep bow. The locations and images they create will creep out the most hardened horror fan. Not with gallons of blood, or torture chambers. But with slanted walls, oddly piled furniture and beings that look like they might have been human. At some point. Then they toss in a body-chomping dinner table scene that will leave audiences flabbergasted. There is plenty of space around the characters, yet the footage feels claustrophobic. The special effects aren’t off the chart but are there when they need to be. While the sound design steadily amplifies the tension, layering droning effects, foreign voices and electronic textures into an atmosphere of mounting dread.
The setting is suburban America in the 1990s. Some footage has a camcorder look, and the scratchy, out-of-focus images are reminiscent of the times and technology. If The Blair Witch Project comes to mind, you’re on the right track, but this film is more artful. Better thought out. Not accidental. Cinematographer Jeremy Cox knows astutely when the point of view should be that of one of the characters or the creepy observers. Editor Greg Ng doesn’t waste anyone’s time. The few pieces of quietness and normalcy are the breaks audiences need from the relentless tension.
Parsons has had lots of practice building this kind of terror. Even at just 20 years old, Parsons excels at sustaining a feeling of constant surveillance and unease. Explanations for the weirdness you’re seeing don’t come until the end of the film. And even then, the explanation is so cryptic it leaves more questions unanswered than answered. Parsons seems to encourage the cast to act as normal as possible. That approach gives the film a cinema verité feel, although you know all of it is fake. Yet you’re still drawn in.
Part of the engagement is the colossal work of Ejiofor, who is British but has an American accent that’s so right. His Clark is dazed, burdened by the guilt of his past and failed marriage. He’s trying to figure out his present and future. That’s an emotional hook audiences can appreciate. Reinsve as Mary seems to have all the poise a therapist should have on the outside, yet she has her own demons. Another hook that pulls viewers in. Lukita Maxwell as Kat, an employee, and Finn Bennett as Bobby, the videographer, are nice diversions. Those who play the creepy monsters do so without hysterics. They just bite into whoever deserves it.
Expect horror fans of all ages to appreciate this scary movie and to internalize images they won’t forget. Don’t be fooled by the slow, paced beginning. Your heartbeat will quicken in due time. Your blood pressure will rise. Not enough to call the EMS. Just enough to have them on speed dial.
You know, on the TV show The Price is Right, you get to pick between the box or the door. Take the box, dude. If your crazy ass takes the door and the portal to the other world, that’s on you. Because audiences will be screaming at you to turn around and “Get the hell out of there!” Walk away from the threshold. Walk away.
Backrooms takes the time to seduce the audience, then pulls the rug out from under them. Watch out!
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HjdiohVOik
Visit Film Critic Dwight Brown at DwightBrownInk.com.