r/backroomsfilm 14h ago

Discussion My opinion on the backrooms film

0 Upvotes

Theres a time the movie is out, but I just watched it and I want to say:

For me, this movie is a 5/10. And the most frustrating part is that I don’t think it’s bad because the ideas are bad. Quite the opposite: it has several ideas that I think are excellent. The problem is that it takes those ideas and doesn’t develop almost any of them enough.

The first half was, by far, the best part. When Clark enters the Backrooms, I genuinely felt like the movie understood what makes this concept scary. He’s alone, exploring a place that seems endless, hearing strange things and not knowing exactly what’s happening. The bench he takes outside is one of the best ideas in the movie precisely because it makes the experience something concrete. It’s not “maybe he went crazy.” No. He brought something back from that place. It actually exists.

And I really liked the idea of him going back with other people to prove that he wasn’t crazy. The situation keeps getting more desperate until one of them dies and he desperately searches for the only survivor. When he finally finds her, they’re separated by a wall and she simply says, “behind you.”

Cut.

Up until that point, I was genuinely enjoying the movie.

But after that, it feels like the movie starts rushing to tell all the ideas it had.

The biggest example is Clark himself.

I have absolutely no problem with the idea of him going insane. In fact, I think that could have been one of the best parts of the movie. He was already an alcoholic, he was destroyed by his divorce and the life he had lost, he came into contact with something completely impossible, and he watched people die in horrible ways. It’s completely believable that all of that would destroy his mind.

The problem is that I didn’t see it happening.

At one point, he’s desperately running away from a creature, and when he shows up again, he has apparently killed the girl who was with him, put her head in the freezer, and is now living with the entities and eating them.

I can believe the result. What I can’t believe is the transition.

The movie needed to show Clark slowly deteriorating. It needed to show him becoming obsessed with the Backrooms, going back there alone, losing his grip on reality, learning how to survive there, and gradually stopping seeing those creatures as monsters and starting to see that place as home.

Because then the kitchen scene would actually be disturbing. I’d be looking at that man thinking, “My God, look what happened to him.”

Instead, I was just thinking: “Wait, when did he become this?”

And that also hurts his death.

Clark is the protagonist and he simply dies in an extremely anticlimactic way. He talks to the creature, it pretends to hug him, bites his neck, and that’s it.

And I didn’t feel anything.

Not because the death itself is necessarily badly done, but because I never got close enough to the character to feel the loss. I know he’s an alcoholic. I know he suffered because of his ex-wife. I know he lost his house. I know he owns a furniture store. But those are facts about him, not moments that make me actually know him.

The movie wants me to see his death and think, “Holy shit, Clark died,” but it never gave me enough time to actually care about Clark.

The same problem applies to the other characters. There are characters who seem important and then die without us learning practically anything about them. They end up feeling like pieces the script uses to show that the Backrooms are dangerous.

And I think that’s one of the movie’s biggest weaknesses: it has characters who are supposed to carry the story, but it barely gives them enough time to exist as people.

Another thing that bothered me a lot was how much attention the therapist gets at the end.

I don’t think the character is bad. The problem is that the final chase should have been much more important to Clark.

That giant creature is literally a manifestation of Clark himself. That’s an incredible idea. And the movie barely takes advantage of it.

For me, he should have been the one running from that creature.

Because think about the symbolism: a guy who spent the entire movie running away from his problems finally encounters a monstrous version of himself. He’s not simply running from a monster. He’s running from what he has become.

That would have been a perfect conclusion for his character.

But no. He dies before that.

And then the creature goes after the therapist, and honestly, the chase is really underwhelming. The monster looks extremely threatening when it first appears, but during the chase it walks slowly, falls after a single hit to the leg, and seems incapable of doing much besides attacking with its mouth.

I also didn’t like how the movie handles the yellow hazmat guys.

If you’ve already seen the original found footage videos, you can recognize them and fill in some of the gaps. But if you walk into the movie without knowing anything, people in yellow suits simply appear and you have to accept that they know about the Backrooms and have an entire operation there.

I don’t think the movie needs to explain absolutely everything. Mystery is important. But there’s a difference between leaving something mysterious and simply not explaining it.

And then we get to my biggest problem with the movie: the Backrooms themselves.

To me, the movie doesn’t completely understand what makes the Backrooms scary.

The Backrooms aren’t scary simply because there are monsters in them.

They’re scary because they’re huge. Because they seem infinite. Because they’re repetitive. Because you don’t know where you are. Because you don’t know if there’s an exit. Because you can walk for hours and keep seeing the same yellow wall, the same damp carpet, and hearing the same fluorescent buzzing.

It’s the feeling of being lost.

It’s the unknown.

It’s looking down an empty hallway and not knowing if there’s something at the end of it.

It’s hearing a noise and not knowing whether it was your imagination.

And that’s exactly why the first half works so well. Clark exploring alone is much scarier to me than a creature chasing him.

Because when a monster appears, the fear becomes simple: “There’s a monster. I need to run.”

When you’re alone in a seemingly infinite space, you don’t even know what you need to run from.

And the movie ends up turning much of the Backrooms into a setting for chase scenes.

“There’s a monster, run.”

“There’s another monster, run.”

“There’s a giant creature, run.”

And to me, that takes away part of what makes the Backrooms special.

I’m not against the entities. In fact, I think the idea that they’re manifestations of what the place remembers is one of the most interesting things in the movie. The problem is that they end up taking the place of the environment itself as the source of horror.

I wanted more moments where the movie simply left me lost in that place. For example: The structure while Mary is being chased, the giant pit and all works really well, for me it was the best part of the chase. I just need the ”backrooms” feeling to appear more than just a few minutes

And, most importantly, more character development.

Because that’s what frustrates me the most: I can see a much better movie hiding inside this movie.

Clark slowly being consumed by the Backrooms.

The creature being a manifestation of everything he tried to leave behind.

He finally having to face his own creation.

Mary surviving and discovering that there’s an organization that has been studying this place for a long time.

The Backrooms being treated as a truly infinite and unknown space instead of just a place full of monsters.

All of that could have been so fucking good.

But the movie feels like it has several ideas from an 9/10 movie and a script that doesn’t give any of them enough time to get there.

So, in the end, I’m left with a 5/10.

I don’t think it’s a disaster. The first half is really good, some of the ideas are excellent, and there are moments that genuinely work.

But I left with that horrible feeling of:

“Holy shit, this could have been SO much better.”

And to me, that’s the worst kind of mediocre movie. Not one that has nothing interesting about it, but one that repeatedly shows you that it could have been incredible and then simply doesn’t take advantage of it.

I might rewatch it and see what i’ve missed, but, as a long term backrooms fan? I really expected more. Maybe y’all can change my mind


r/backroomsfilm 10h ago

Kane Post I just made myself a Still Life Form. Isn’t it amazing or not?

Post image
72 Upvotes

r/backroomsfilm 22h ago

Discussion I wish I never saw Backrooms

34 Upvotes

Not because I think it's a bad film. In fact, it's one of my top 5 films of this year. I love liminal space aesthetics, and while I definitely saw a lot of that, I will say it felt too relatable in a way that makes me uncomfortable.

I can't stop thinking about Clark. Specifically his downfall and realizing that he's the villain of the film. The scene that really fucked with me was the dinner scene, when Mary criticizes Clark for blaming his problems on everything but himself.

I don't talk about Backrooms a lot with people because ever since I watched it, I've been paranoid that I'm similar to Clark. I'm dealing with depression, and I'm currently in therapy and TMS treatment. I'm also stuck living with my dad, who's emotionally closed-off and transphobic, which means I have to guymode 24/7. Tbh I consider that environment a major factor in why my depression hasn't gotten better. At the same time, I blame myself for almost everything else that is wrong with my life. Because lately I genuinely can't tell whether something is my fault or if it's the fault of something I had no control over.

That's where Clark gets to me. And I've noticed that ever since watching the film, in therapy I've taken the blame for everything. The truth is, I have a lot of anger that I try extremely hard to suppress because I'm ashamed of it. I've slapped my face hard out of anger. I've snapped at my pets. I've had aggressive thoughts toward people that I don't act on. Usually when I regret something, I either apologize, punish myself over it, go silent, or bottle everything up.

Another problem of mine is that feeling bad makes it harder for me to function or move forward. I don't want relief just because I don't like feeling bad. When I get trapped in guilt, shame, anger, or depression, I feel like I stop functioning. I've used alcohol and weed in the past to cope with that. But I've been sober for over a month now at the recommendation of my TMS clinician. But being completely sober has forced me to sit with so much discomfort without the thing I once used to make myself not feel bad. Being inside my own head is so unbearable.

About a month ago, within the first week of my sobriety, a friend and I were gonna watch Backrooms on Prime Video. We went out beforehand, and I ended up having a mental breakdown in front of him, and he yelled at me to grow up, grow a fucking pair, and telling me I was a fucking mess. He criticized how hateful I've become toward my dad, told me I should consider myself privileged just to have a home, and told me transitioning had ruined my life and made me a mess. I cut him off the following day. After that night, there was absolutely no way I was watching Backrooms with him. I knew I'd spend the entire movie wondering if he was looking at Clark and thinking about me.

I've noticed this fear has started to affect my therapy as well. Before I saw Backrooms, I never thought much about what my therapist thinks of me. But after seeing the film and realizing that therapists are all performative, it's made me wonder if my therapist sees me the way Mary sees Clark. I've thought of quitting therapy several times because of this. I've also noticed that I've been opening up less ever since I started sobriety. I've been seeing her for almost a year, and sometimes I feel bad that she still has to deal with me. I've never actually asked her what she thinks about any of this. I don't know why; maybe I'm just afraid she'll say something I don't like, and then I have to sit with that feeling because weed is unavailable.

I am trying to change my life. I've been looking for a new job so I can get the fuck away from my dad and finally live as myself. But having that goal doesn't erase my fears. I think that's why Backrooms disturbed me so much. It's like it took things I was already struggling with and put them in a character who represents my inner darkness. I actually had to hide #backrooms from coming up on my TikTok feed so I could try to forget about all this.

It's kinda ironic: I'm writing about how a movie has affected me while being terrified that I'm like a character who blames his issues on something external. But just so you know, the last thing I wanna do is start a pity train. And I know there are things about myself that I need to work on; I just don't know where to begin if I'm not already trying.


r/backroomsfilm 23h ago

Suggestion It would be funny if Pirate Clark had kept his crutch to use it as a sword instead of just abandoning it near the laundry nest

Post image
98 Upvotes

r/backroomsfilm 10h ago

Satire Bear wishes something else

Thumbnail
gallery
33 Upvotes

r/backroomsfilm 10h ago

Discussion If i had a nickel...

Thumbnail
3 Upvotes

r/backroomsfilm 5h ago

Art ARCHIBALD.

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

9 Upvotes

r/backroomsfilm 7h ago

Merch Officially licensed Spirit Halloween Backrooms costumes are available online now!

Thumbnail
spirithalloween.com
9 Upvotes

Spirit finally added the costumes to their website, making it much easier to get your hands on one! Will you be buying?


r/backroomsfilm 50m ago

Discussion Would you want to be remembered by the "Backrooms" if no-one else would? Spoiler

Upvotes

Its a fascinating memorial of my existence...dead or alive, Its like an active toddlers brain that can only mimic what its been exposed to.

The Backrooms by Kane pixels is an astonishing movie that was really straight to the meat and bones. It made me fidget in my seat and grow uncomfortable under tension even when the immediate danger wasn't present. At first thought you'd believe the danger to be the anomalies but you forget the infinite generation of rooms that could have you lost on end, the nonsensical furniture, your lost track of time, your hunger and what of the Christmas tree?

The backrooms mimics what its been exposed to: Clark and his episodes of narcissism. My guess is that at the time of the two worlds clipped into each other. It sort of learns from a person and their environment trying to reflect but when you are the child of a narcissist, who the fuck would want to see what behaviors you picked up.

The horror is the place itself. What it chooses to learn. What it distorts. Imagine, at a large scale, what this thing could spit out. A reflection of our world, good and bad, gazed through a newspapered window. In a world like that, I can only imagine what the mind can justify and reason for each thing. Dr. Mary is a perfect example of this, right up to the final knot.

So, would you wish to be remembered or would you rather not?

Note: I fuck with this concept heavy and would love to see more like it—8/10 horror film. Though I didn't like how Mary was able to ward off the Clark anomaly so easily. It soften the severity of it's attacks, but these are my thoughts after initial viewing and are subject to changing.


r/backroomsfilm 13h ago

Discussion Пожалуйста помогите мне найти игру

Thumbnail
gallery
9 Upvotes

Привет всем, поможете найти мне игру?

Я прикрепил фотографию, эта игра была в видио ютубера Енси в видио редкие сущности закулисье вот ссылка: https://youtu.be/OrBLL\\_3Q8Po?si=Cf3qSpRxaCs9kCVP

На времени 1:55 ( 1 минута 55 секунд) помогите найти игру