Back Room
Kane Parsons is now screening in theaters

There’s an unsettling quality to a room that appears to serve no purpose. A hallway with no destination. A chair half-embedded in the floor. Even a misaligned sofa poses a latent threat. In Back Room, 20-year-old Kane Parsons makes his feature debut, where ordinary objects are stripped of their usual context, transforming into something alien. Shadows, carpeted hallways, and buzzing fluorescent lights serve as telltale signs that our grasp on reality is fleeting.

Originally conceptualized by Parsons, better known online as Kane Pixels, Back Room is a YouTube phenomenon inspired by a 2019 post from an anonymous 4chan user featuring a room adorned with yellow wallpaper and fluorescent lights. The post sought other “disturbing images that evoke discomfort.” In response, another user described “the stench of old damp carpets, monochromatic yellow madness…and a back room encompassing 600 million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms.” Thus, the internet horror sensation was born.

Parsons’ film, penned by Will Sudich, is set in June 1990. It follows Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a failed architect managing a large furniture store, and his therapist, Dr. Mary Klein (Renate Reinsve). Clark, an everyday man marked by a birthmark, stumbles upon a bizarre door in the store’s basement, leading him into an endless series of rooms. When he cannot escape, Mary sets out to find him.

Rather than diluting the original concept, the transition from short web horror to feature film preserves the menacing ambiance of the short film, amplifying it through haunting production design, deliberate cinematography, and a chilling soundscape. The relentless electrical hum sinks into your skull, inducing a lingering discomfort.

The early 1990s setting not only adds aesthetic value; the VHS textures, analog recordings, and institutional blandness place the film in a technological void just before digital surveillance became commonplace. This backdrop is vital as Back Room, at its core, explores horror through the lens of an unstable universe.

The “back room” represents more than a maze or an alternate dimension in need of explanation. The film hints that time spent inside affects one’s psyche, which in turn can alter the space itself. Perception becomes the construct of reality. Anxieties, memories, and attachments exert spatial influence. This concept imbues Back Room with greater depth than mere monster-under-the-bed tales.

The film positions itself within the current wave of liminal space horror, similar to Exit 8, Genki Kawamura’s adaptation of a Japanese video game about a man trapped in a subway loop. Both films recognize that repetition and minor errors can evoke more terror than outright violence. Rooted in viral digital culture, they transform mundane spaces into psychological traps. Yet, Back Room shifts focus from identifying anomalies within a defined loop to surrendering to a reality where the rules reshape themselves around the victims, unlike Exit 8, which adheres to a precise, almost game-like structure. Back Room is expansive, chaotic, and cosmological.

The film deftly explores the horrors of practicality. Theoretically, anything in the back room could be beneficial. Infinite free space might resolve storage, housing, logistics, and urban overcrowding challenges. It’s no wonder companies and research institutions view it as a treasure. However, Parsons subverts this notion into dread: an endless warehouse morphs into a nightmare when the exit remains elusive.

Performances anchor this abstraction. Reinsve shines as Mary, exuding warmth and eerie certainty. Ejiofor imbues Clark with the weary aura of a man who has failed once and now faces entrapment in an alternative realm.

The conclusion feels abrupt and is clearly designed to pave the way for future installments. Numerous questions linger, perhaps frustratingly so. Yet this ambiguity serves a purpose. At the end, we share Clark’s desire to unravel the mystery of the back room. In few modern horror films do shadows, wallpaper, and low-cost furniture manifest such hostility. The journey began with a simple image posted in a 4chan thread, culminating in a remarkably potent cinematic exploration of fear, space, and perception.

Davide Abbatesianni is a film critic based in Rome, Italy.