ALTERED STATES (BACKROOMS)

BACKROOMS

And now for something very creepy.

'Backrooms' is a psychological horror sci-fi film whose characters discover a secret passage into another world in a retail park furniture store.

From the fevered imagination of 21 year old You Tube filmmaker Kane Parsons, it is based on a concept he developed into a web series where viewers watched "found footage" of characters exploring distorted, mostly vacant rooms.

The 'Backrooms' web series he created in 2022 attracted a cult following and over 24 episodes became a "creepypasta" -  the name given to a cult online horror series that inspires its own lore.

In the film version, Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Clark, the owner of a pirate themed furniture warehouse in a largely ignored retail park that you suspect has seen better days.

Early on, we learn Clark is a failed architect whose marriage has fallen apart due to his drinking.

Visiting Renate Reinsve's therapist Dr Mary Kline, she encourages him to role play an imagined conversation with his wife in an attempt to address his ange issues.

Mary, we learn, also has a childhood trauma of her own which she is also working through.

Sleeping in his store, Clark is kept awake by an electricity supply that appears to have a life of its own.

Going down into a basement storeroom which houses the power circuit box, he accidentally stumbles upon a portal into another world.

Discovering he can walk through a wall, Clark starts exploring a series of mostly empty rooms and corridors where furniture is occasionally stacked weirdly and which also houses things like a stop sign.

The further Clark ventures, the weirder it becomes and the more he realises there may be another presence there.

Freaked out initially by his discovery, he is nevertheless compelled to go back and becomes obsessed with mapping out the backrooms he has discovered.

After confiding in Mary about his discovery, who treats his claims with scepticism, he sets out to gather further incontrovertible evidence of this other world.

Recruiting employee, Lukita Maxwell's Kat Taylor and her boyfriend, Finn Bennett's Bobby Franklin to explore the backrooms with him and video them, Clark freaks both of them out by taking them to the basement room and walking through the wall.

Tentatively exploring this new world, Kat and Bobby nervously trek through the corridors and rooms with him videoing what they see until the visit goes horribly wrong.

Parsons' film, eerily shot by cinematographer Jeremy Cox and tensely edited by Greg Ng, was made on a modest budget of $10 million and was acquired for distribution by the indie company A24.

With some Gen Z audiences already lapping up the web series, it has so far surged to a $277.5 million box office take - surpassing 'Marty Supreme' as A24's best performing movie.

So why has it struck a chord?

Few would disagree that there's nothing more creepy than discovering and exploring largely empty rooms and corridors in seemingly abandoned building.

Parson's film does a really good job tapping into that sensation and especially the fight or flight responses it can trigger.

Cox's use of video camera is also a nice nod to another low budget, 1999 psychological horror phenomenon, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez's groundbreakimg "found footage" classic, 'The Blair Witch Project'.

The visuals are also shrewdly conceived by Parsons, his fellow screenwriter Will Soodik and the production designer Danny Vermette who create an increasingly disturbing and disorientating alternative world beyond the basement storeroom.

Older viewers will be reminded of Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining' and Alfred Hirchcock's 'Psycho' which also made effective use of distorted interiors and creepy sounds off camera.

However the movie's success also hinges on its cast fully committing to the concept.

Fortunately, Ejiofor, Reinsve, Maxwell and Bennett really amp up the foreboding sense of doom the further their characters wander into the distorted world of the backrooms.

Mark Duplass pops up too as a scientist who is researching this strange and disturbing world.

And while it may not be everyone's cup of tea, there's no doubt that Parsons has created a genuinely unsettling horror movie whose memory is hard to shake off.

A bright future clearly awaits the young Californian if he is really prepared to push the boundaries of his storytelling abilities.

('Backrooms' was released in UK and Irish cinemas on May 29, 2026)