In January of 2022, a then 16-year-old Kane Parsons uploaded a viral short film titled The Backrooms (Found Footage). Kane’s internet success lead to an historic Hollywood deal and at just 20-years-old he’s the youngest director in A24 history; and I am here for these organic successes working as discoveries for new talents. Kuddos all around, for star Chiwetel Ejiofor to start, who is bursting with anxiety and rage as failing furniture store manager Clark, who stumbles upon a portal in the big box basement and into the Backrooms, an unsettling and endless maze of windowless hallways and rooms that, at first at least, don’t look out of place butted up against the depressing interiors of any unremarkable retail/office building. Clark wanders about amongst the fluorescent lights and nondescript yellow walls and hallways to nowhere in this rather ho-hum dimension. But of course, the deeper he goes the more the layout and random objects morph into his trauma. Is he crazy? Do the Backrooms validate his paranoia and self-inflicted isolation? Clark’s psychiatrist Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve, kuddos again) is, like us, at a loss. She is eating the ripples and dread of her traumatic childhood and is here to help and heal, she thinks. Regardless, the Backrooms are pulling her, and us, in, but for what? This is not a spoiler per se, as Backrooms isn’t really here to give us answers, but instead to pose questions. For what I can manage: the Backrooms are seemingly infinite, extradimensional echoes of the people who enter; distorted recreations of their memories and fears in a labyrinth of vacant office space. What are we beyond our individual collection of memories, which become distorted renditions that we make new and live by everyday? On their own they make no sense, and why do they exist, if they exist at all?  Why do The Backrooms look different to everyone who goes in? And who is in charge? The lights are on, we can see it all and feel it all, and it looks somewhat organized, though completely illogical. We can try to make sense of it, but like a dream it only ever existed and made perfect sense in our individual minds. And could all of our unreliable memories exist together somehow and for what? For that matter, could AI be our growing mashed-up collective and how does it or can it make sense of us all? My guess is we are in charge, individually or as a collective, and that is terrifying.

WATCH OR NOT: WATCH

Additional musings: I’d like Parsons to explore more of this world and the touched on themes onscreen. I hope there’s a sequel.