Backrooms

 

Kane Parsons: Backrooms (US 2026). Renate Reinsve (Mary).

Tagline: A strange doorway appears in the basement of a furniture showroom.

    US © 2026 Backroom Rights LLC, PC Films, LLC.

    Cast (in order of appearance)

Chiwetel Ejiofor / Clark

Renate Reinsve / Mary

Mark Duplass / Phil

Finn Bennett / Bobby

Lukita Maxwell / Kat

    Crew

Directed by Kane Parsons

Written by Will Soodik

Produced by James Wan, Michael Clear, Roberto Patino, Shawn Levy, Dan Cohen, Dan Levine, Osgood Perkins, Chris Ferguson, Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping, Kori Adelson

Executive Producers Kane Parsons, Jesse Savath, Judson Scott, Chris White

Editing by Greg Ng

    Loc: Vancouver, British Columbia

    111 min

    Finnish premiere: 29 May 2026 - released by Oy Nordisk Film Ab

    Viewed on blu-ray at home, 14 Oct 2026

AA: Only now I see Backrooms. I have been aware of the good buzz, for instance from Axel Sirodeau, that this is one of the films of the year which is special, like nothing else.

Indeed. The last 12 years have been a period of rebirth and innovation in the genre of the horror movie. I am not surprised. Horror is one of the genres which has an innate capability to be reborn everywhere. 

Horror emerges from an encounter with death and madness. The same goes for poetry in general, in the Orphic sense. Orpheus descends into the land of Death to retrieve Eurydice. He fails in his mission. His only solace is a heightened sense of transience and eternity. One of the movies evoked by Backrooms is Jean Cocteau's Orpheus, with it magic special effects, mirrors and walls.

This is my first encounter with the work of Kane Parsons. From the production notes I learn that he is a "visionary YouTube creator making his feature-filmmaking debut":

"Set in 1990 and based on Parsons’ viral web series, BACKROOMS follows furniture salesman Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) as he makes a startling discovery in the basement of his showroom — a portal, bathed in yellow fluorescent lights and littered with familiar objects, leading to an eerie maze of endless office space."

"Shaken by what he discovers there, Clark is also drawn to its anomalies. He enlists his skeptical employee Kat (Lukita Maxwell) and her boyfriend Bobby (Finn Bennett) to help chart its unsettling expanse of impossibly constructed rooms and corridors, where strange noises hint that something otherworldly may be lurking in the shadows."

"When Clark goes missing, his therapist Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve), confronting buried traumas of her own, finds herself lost in the BACKROOMS searching for answers, and a way out."

Initially vaguely reminiscent of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Kane Parsons' rabbit holes lead to other rabbit holes, usually arid, abandoned storage spaces until there is suddenly an abyss of a multi-story office building. Something has gone hideously wrong somewhere, and now nobody can fix it. This is a "maze that goes on and on".

Kane Parsons displays talent in the art of the point of view on his weird journey to the world beyond the looking-glass.

A key special effect is the slit on the wall: you can literally walk through a wall and enter another space. It is a magic effect of penetration with a gentle sexual undertone. But there is more. 

Mutations and mutilations like never seen before in the cinema emerge. From ordinary premises something hideous and desolate follows. In the core of the story we discover the genuinely moving characters of the furniture salesman Clark and the therapist Mary. The performances of Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve are excellent. Both face forces beyond belief. 

Until it is not gentle anymore. We turn into distorted imitations of ourselves. We turn into cannibals.  The film takes a turn into gore and splatter.

The mystery? "We used to make MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machines." "Nothing in our liffetime, in our recorded history... I don't understand... I can't even describe it... there are doors opening everywhere".

We have built a world that is spiralling out of our control.