Reel Reviews The Backrooms (2026)
Theatre updates aside, I have quite literally never seen a theatre this packed in my entire life. Even Five Nights at Freddy's 2, which I thought would have sold out completely, was only about 1/3 of the way full and Iron Lung was about halfway full, whereas the Backrooms filled almost every single seat.
The Summary
The Backrooms follows Clark, a furniture store owner with a failing marriage and a drinking problem and his therapist Mary as they try to work through ghosts of their past and the monsters of their present. Clark finds a portal in the wall of his furniture store that leads him to an infinite maze of rooms, rooms that he has tried to map but can't seem to be able to find the end of.
Upon receiving a disturbing call from Clark, Mary's concern for his wellbeing and her own gnawing curiosity gets the better of her. She enters the gateway, marked with blue tape, and finds herself in The Backrooms where she must either confront her past to save her future or succumb to the madness that has taken hold of Clark.
The Review
I have to start first and foremost by saying I have absolutely ADORED the Backrooms and just the concept of the Backrooms for a really long time. I love liminal spaces, I think they're so eerie and comforting at the same time, and I have a really weird knack for accidentally finding them (maybe one day I'll no-clip through reality who knows?).
Getting into the film itself though, I had received some negative feedback from my cousin who had gone to see the film and I was a bit skeptical about it because the concept of the Backrooms is just so... larger than life I knew it was going to be hard to pull off well when I first heard the film was in production. However, I went into this film as neutrally as I possibly could between my excitement to see it finished after such a promising trailer and the little seed of doubt my cousin's critique had planted.
I was absolutely blown away by the cinematic shots first and foremost, they were absolutely beautiful. I think for the Backrooms shots like this were essential because much of the Backrooms lore is focused around imagery and these weird little liminal spaces where time seems to cease existing. I was not, originally, able to tell if this was set in the mid to late 80s or early 90s however I have neen informed it seems to be the early 90s and I think that played a big factor in the cinematic aspects as well. The Backrooms are meant to elicit a feeling of nostalgia, and the set up for this excelled in that feeling without being overly telling and I feel that really added a lot to it.
We got to see a lot of levels to the Backrooms as well, which I thought was really nice. I had originally worried they were only going to touch on one level, so seeing how they connected several levels at once through these little secret passageways was really interesting and I thought it was very clever! They even included more niche levels of the Backrooms and showed that where you end up while exploring them is sort of a gamble.
Additionally I loved the underlying themes of breaking cycles, facing down your trauma, and how if you make no effort to change your bad habits will not only hurt you but those around you. I thought that was such a clever way to add meaning to the concept without it becoming gimmicky or performative, you quite literally have to break your cycles to survive in the Backrooms which is symbolized by Mary.
Although there is much to love about this film, I do wish they had included more creatures from the lore of the Backrooms, however I do understand this film was on a bit of a budget and I think their funds were very well allocated. The animation and practical effects were very smooth and I think I would rather have less monsters roaming around and clean special effects than the latter because it would have taken away the magic. I was also a little worried that AI had been used because of how clean everything was but the director is actually very publicly anti-AI which I appreciate as an artist.
Closing
If you want to learn more about the Backrooms I highly suggest checking out Broogli over on YouTube you can find the link to his channel here and if you haven't yet, go see the Backrooms in a theatre, I wish I could go back and see it again, but alas I am going to see Scary Movie 6 instead. If you want to see more from me feel free to click the link below where you can find my other socials. Y'all take care, and thanks for stopping by!
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