After a therapist’s patient disappears into a dimension beyond reality, she must venture into the unknown to save him.

‘Backrooms’ isn’t the first horror film to be based on an internet legend (or ‘creepypasta’ to use the correct term), but it may already be one of the most successful. For those unfamiliar with its origins, the concept emerged from a 4chan thread built around images of large, empty rooms, tapping into the unsettling quality of liminal spaces that feel simultaneously familiar and wrong. Director Kane Parsons had already expanded the idea into a popular web series, and now makes his feature debut with a film that has attracted a surprisingly impressive cast, including Oscar nominees Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve.

Ejiofor plays Clark, a struggling furniture store owner who is going through a breakup while failing to cope with his alcoholism. He regularly attends therapy sessions with Mary (Renate Reinsve), unloading his problems while remaining largely oblivious to her own. When a series of strange electrical faults at his store lead him to discover a hidden area beyond the basement wall, Clark finds himself entering the ‘Backrooms’: an endless maze of yellow corridors and office spaces that feel like a nightmare version of the world inhabited by the characters in ‘Severance’ (which you could argue itself is a bit nightmarish!). Fascinated by what he has found, he returns with his employees to document it, with predictably disastrous consequences.

Parsons is particularly effective at building atmosphere, using the emptiness of the Backrooms to create a persistent sense of unease. This is less a film built around traditional scares than one driven by surreal horror, with the uncanny environment itself often proving more disturbing than anything lurking within it. Ejiofor and Reinsve both do strong work despite spending much of the film reacting to spaces and concepts rather than tangible threats, and Parsons shows a real eye for visual storytelling.

That said, there are limits to how far the central idea can be stretched. Part of what makes the ‘Backrooms’ so effective is their mystery, and as the film progresses and begins to explain and show more, some of that power inevitably fades. Even so, the atmosphere remains compelling throughout, and while I admired the film more than I loved it, it marks Kane Parsons out as a filmmaker with a distinctive visual style and an intriguing future ahead of him.

Rating: 3/5

Directed By: Kane Parsons

Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett and Lukita Maxwell

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt26657236/