Backrooms (2026) Movie Review

Hello ladies and gentlemen welcome to the concession stand here on the KB radio network I am your host Kevin Reed and welcome to the review of the science fiction psychological horror film back

rooms which is brought to us by the good folks over at a 24 and first time writer and director

King Parsons who

is a youtuber who makes the leap to the big screen this is a phenomenon as of late and so far so good with these youtubers who are making these horror films and films in general proving

that youtube is a platform where you can kind of hone your skills and uh go on to bigger and better things.

Back Rooms.

The film stars two of our...

Chuafer

Ekafor, I can never nail his name,

my apologies,

Renat

Reinsave and Mark Duplenses,

and in this film,

Clark,

a furniture store owner,

and his therapist discover a dimension of seemingly endless spaces accessing through the basement of the store.

This is based off of a game.

that uh or a web series depending on how you want to uh put it together but it's something that i knew nothing about i knew absolutely nothing about back rooms so i

saw the trailer when they first dropped a few months back and i was like oh that looks interesting that's something i might want to check out i'm all for some originality and film that's my thing and a friend of mine had uh

told me about oh man you saw the trailer for back rooms i was like oddly enough i did and just excited just went on this

20 30 minute tangent about back rooms and i'm sitting there like oh oh that sounds interesting and they were like yeah yeah i've been into that for a while okay so

i was faced with the decision do i

go look up this backroom stuff before i go see the movie or go into it blind well i didn't fully dive into backrooms i did watch a couple of videos on it and not to say it didn't hook

me or anything i just didn't get into it you know but i was still excited for this film and i wasn't disappointed this was a you

Really good movie.

To say this is a first-time director behind the camera,

this looked like a film that was directed by a seasoned filmmaker who has about five or six movies under their belt.

I was impressed with the direction of Backrooms.

Now,

full disclosure,

Cain Parsons is kind of the originator.

of back rooms online i don't think he created it it depends on what you read some some articles or some write-ups about it says that he started it and then you have some that say well he didn't really start it but he's the one that really put it on the map either way it goes he knows this property and you can clearly

see um throughout the direction of this film this is

Not your typical horror movie,

you know,

there isn't,

you know,

a lot of blood and guts,

even though there is some blood later on in the film,

you know,

when things are turned up to 11,

but it is not a slasher genre or anything like that monster genre.

It's a creep fest,

man.

This is truly psychological.

And you're introduced to that in the opening scene.

I mean,

the first five minutes of this movie,

I was so uneasy.

I was so uncomfortable because it's a real fine mix of found footage and,

you know,

standard film.

And the found footage sequences,

I must say,

was probably the best elements of this movie.

And found footage films have kind of played out.

you know i think they had their moment of shine and it was done to death for like a 10 year period in the early 20s

20 odds and all you got was found footage found footage found footage after blair witch it just went crazy with the found footage uh found footage is a good sub-genre in horror but they just did every movie was a found footage movie in that genre and it

just played itself out and now if you use it right you can still do found footage films you just got to do something different

and this movie does that it is found footage that i'm super impressed by the fact it was set in the 90s actually in 1990 to be exact this film setting is and to use a vhs handheld camera as your opening to

this film really put the creep factor in me sitting there and watching uh uh

whoever it was from this pov angle running through these corridors these hallways and uh going in these different rooms and you you hear something coming but you don't see anything coming but you know it's there and

it's like

50 corners in a hallway so as he's running he's looking down every little corner and you're just anticipating the the jump scare of a century

to pop up but you know it's it's just keeping you on edge the entire time throughout this sequence and you get a couple of sequences like that in this film i was creeped out the

scenes that were supposed to be creepy and scary and spooky delivered in spades uh our lead here to to a tour l ed for one day i'm you

gonna nail his name he is awesome man this could easily been a paycheck movie you know i mean he's working with a first-time director in this little indie horror film you know this is an established actor after all oh he

he delivered and now i will say this if this for all the actors involved because all of them did a pretty decent job but i think the screen paid played

didn't really do him any justice and this is where uh kane parsons i think fell a little short you know his direction was great but uh the screenplay a little a little iffy at parts you know some of the dialogue was like

you know it's it's no way normal people speak in certain moments in this film nobody's

nobody talks like that but our actors the way they delivered it delivered it the best they could and so you couldn't do anything but tip your hat and respect it the runtime which is close to two hours i think this movie is a hour and 52 53 minutes something like that with credits if

if it dragged in areas of this film that

i don't understand why you know i'll say this much about it i guess the spoilers or whatever but it doesn't impact the outcome or anything like that but the the only areas of this film that drag is when they're not in the back rooms when

they're in the real world outside world the film drags i mean drags but once we get into the back rooms oh the movie is is flowing

and it is flowing very well and it's not like we're not in that dimension long you know this isn't the type of movie where we only venture off into these areas for five or ten minutes two or three scenes now you you're in it a good bunch bunch so uh that

wasn't so much of an issue but it just outside it just drug it drug it

you know you had to be on the outside to appreciate it all but certain moments felt repetitive especially with our therapist you know uh trying to get her established as a main character here it just felt repetitive in a couple of scenes like okay we've been down this road before uh

let's move along you know but aside from those few gripes right there i have no other complaints about

Backrooms,

I thought it was a...

very well made horror movie psychological movie it's one of those movies that that will stick with you it's it's one of those ones that makes you uh think about things in your past and whatnot and uh

conjure it up in your mind to whereas you know the way the film is and the the structure of the back rooms.

Like I said,

I don't know about the...

web series too much so i don't know if this is canon or this is how it goes i'm assuming that it is uh due to the filmmaker involved in this movie and so if if you don't know i'm not gonna spoil it but if you do know i

thought that was very interesting and very very cool what they did there uh makes you want to watch that web series even more i'm giving back rooms

a letter grade of a b minus yeah this was a cool watch and i am i am i'm on cloud nine right now when it comes to horror uh in 2026 let's see some pretty good horror movies and we're we're still in may we're

still in may and all of the horror movies that i liked and enjoyed so far have been these smaller horror movies it the big budget ones

uh like uh the mummy i like the mummy but you know that it wasn't it wasn't up to the level of back rooms i will put back rooms over that like

10 times over you know that it was it was that good uh i would like to know did you think it was just that good or did you think it was even better or are you like somebody

that I talked to recently was like,

what can be so horrifying about empty rooms?

Trust me,

they find a way.

I would love to know your thoughts.

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a24's back rooms want you all to know that i love you continue to love everyone and until we speak again you all be blessed

Backrooms (2026) Movie Review

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