29/05/2026
BACKROOMS
A24 pulls through for the horror genre yet again with another unforgettable trip and driven by an impressive debut from its youngest filmmaker, Kane Parsons.
Having not been familiar with the YouTube series I had no idea what to expect, but honestly, this is one of those ultra weird, strikingly original and iconic little gems that personally will stay with me a decade from now.
I’m not the biggest fan of the ‘found footage’ sub genre, but I gotta say this is probably my favourite after ‘REC’ of course. The visuals are dazzling and the production design is staggeringly awesome, some of the best.
The concept is compelling, edgy, eerie, unsettling and there was not a moment my focus faltered.
Never thought I’d be creeped out by a bunch of pale banana coloured office rooms, but golly they found a way. It is one hell of a trippy mind boggler. An honest successor to that of the world of David Lynch.
The atmosphere, built out of the found footage technique, is quite effective, with dread and psychological scares developing with great skill, wonderful pay offs and just delightfully unpredictable.
Overall, though not quite a masterpiece, this is most definitely one of the greats in the genre of recent memory, up there gloriously side by side with OBSESSION. It does have some undercooked ideas (but maybe that’s all part of the fun), but BACKROOMS manages more than fine being a freakishly memorable and original effort with new ways of creeping you out. The aesthetic and visual prowess are undeniable and it does have some witty generational commentary, decent drama, good performances and delivers just the right amount of weird and strange that I could have easily sat through a 3 hour cut of this film.
This being said, definitely not for everyone, however, if you enjoy the strange and bizarre and can manage some slow burn tension then you may find something that will surely stay with you.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️