Review: Backrooms

Official synopsis: After a therapist's (Renate Reinsve) patient (Chiwetel Ejiofor) disappears into a dimension beyond reality, she must venture into the unknown to save him.

I was not familiar with director Kane Parsons' long going Backroom series on the web. And I made the decision not to research it at all before going into this. I really wanted to see if this film worked without knowledge of the existing lore. 

The thing is, I was really with Backrooms for the first 2/3 of the film. The production design is outstanding. The 90's setting worked very well and you wouldn't really think of bright yellow office spaces as being unsettling, but it is. It teases you properly with what the reveal could be, but when it comes time to end the thing, it seems Parsons and crew either didn't have those answers, or they cared more about baiting a sequel because this has easily one of the most unsatisfying endings I've seen in a long time.

And the more I sit with it, the more it makes me dislike the film overall because it squanders all the good faith I had at the beginning. Maybe fans of the Backroom series already know more and are fine with this ending, but I struggle to see how anyone who isn't can find this to be a suitable conclusion, or even a suitable tease to what's next. Because after all that? I just don't care.

I love Reinsve and Ejiofor as actors and they're both fine here. It's not the meatiest performances of their careers, because again, the film teases some really interesting things about them. but then does nothing with it. 

I am begging filmmakers to write actual endings to their films. If you can't stick the landing, you don't have a story, you have a concept. Wouldn't you rather have a story?

Grade: C