Limnal horror feels like a wonderfully fertile playground.
The idea of the horror of the familar that is just a little off.
As if these places were made with horror and terror in mind, but are just waiting for the players to take the stage.
And it’s that waiting, that endless waiting that makes limnal horror so endlessly creepy.
I realized while watching “Backrooms” that this story is a modern reinvention of a familiar terror: What if you were lost somewhere?
Only here the question is: what if you were lost somewhere familiar?
The “Backrooms” is the story of the familiar and the strange. A furniture store owner wrestling with life after the loss of his wife finds something extraordinary in his store: a passageway into another world. This other world is one that looks and feels familiar, but is anything but. This world is a seemingly endless office building that is just a little off. The man, searching for meaning in his life, starts to explore this strange new world, but he has no way of knowing that he is not the first to have been there, won’t be the last, and that while things may seem empty, you are far from alone in the Backrooms.
Based on the hit YouTube series of the same name, “Backrooms” is a lonely, dread-inducing horror film. It doesn’t rely on jumpscares as much as it plays on the anticipation that something is about to happen. The world here is so scary because it feels so familar, but uncanny. The film opens the online series up in many ways, dramatically, and with its mythology. Fans of the online version of the series will find a LOT of new wrinkles, and even more questions.
The film’s score takes the place as the third star here, adding to the unease, and tension. The actors are great, playing it completely straight, and bringing a humanity that the series never had before. The film drips with atmosphere, and mirrors the world of the Backrooms with the real world, giving a glimpse of how the two intersect.
For those who get frustrated when movies don’t explain everything you are bound to be frustrated here. There are a LOT of questions posed with no clear answers. The characters, while good, are also sketches, with most of their depth happening through the lens of the film and this world. It is an icy feature, to be sure, one about big, cosmic horror, and not the inner workings of the psyche.
Director Kane Parsons, making his first film after creating the series, has an eye for capturing the uncanny. The movie is very well filmed, and he captures really great performances from his actors, who anchor things so they don’t go careening off into insanity.
While not perfect, it’s a ride I loved, and feel like this is going to really work on me as time passes. I hope that the film does well because I’d love to see more, and think that this is a great canvas for filmmaker Parsons to play with, and I can’t wait to see what else lies in those eerie spaces.
If you are looking for something creepy, slow-burning, and with a jarring third act, look no further.
TL;DR: The film ably adapts the online series while expanding it, and upping the stakes, though newbies will pick up all they need from the film.
4 out of 5
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26657236
