Dark closets and creepy attics are all very well and good, but after you’ve seen Backrooms you’ll know that cavernous, office-like spaces have the power to be just as unnerving.
Kane Parsons’ movie, which is based on his series of YouTube shorts, which was in turn inspired by a 4chan creepypasta, takes us into a nightmarish other world that plays with the eerie concept of liminal space.
But what exactly is the liminal space the characters encounter? Where does it come from? What, if anything, does it want? We’ve broken down the ending of Backrooms below, along with some theories.
What is Backrooms about?
Credit: A24
Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), an aspiring architect turned furniture shop owner, is trying to manage his drinking problem and process his recent separation through sessions with his therapist, Mary (Renate Reinsve).
Due to his separation, he’s been sleeping on the floor of his shop. Clark quickly notices that the store’s lights flicker on and off after dark. One night, when he’s investigating down on the basement level, he spots a thin slither of light that appears to shine through the wall. This turns out to be a doorway to another dimension — the titular Backrooms, which are made up of misshapen and cavernous rooms that appear to stretch on and on… and which may well be occupied.
It’s a disturbing concept, but Clark does the only thing a good horror protagonist can: He starts aggressively exploring despite multiple good reasons to leave the doorway well alone.
What happens at the end of Backrooms?
Credit: A24
Clark tells his therapist about the discovery before drafting two of his employees, Kat (Lukita Maxwell) and Bobby (Finn Bennett), to go on a mission with him. He wants them to film a journey into the Backrooms as a kind of proof for Mary, who he rightfully suspects doesn’t believe him. But that mission soon goes badly wrong, with Bobby being dragged through a doorway by something unseen and Kat and Clark becoming separated.
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While running through a maze of rooms, Clark encounters a lurching woman with a misshapen face, before putting down his camera when he hears Kat calling to him through a wall. The camera is picked up by something unseen, and Clark’s fate is left undetermined — until we switch to Mary’s perspective as she follows his trail of breadcrumbs and finds the doorway herself.
Inside the Backrooms, Mary is attacked by Clark and wakes bound to a chair. He’s sitting at a table with her alongside three other creatures that look like misshapen people. Clark explains to her that the Backrooms is “everything that ever was,” and that the distorted man sitting at the table next to him is like a copy, or a memory, of a person that exists somewhere in the real world. Their conversation is interrupted by another creature that comes lurching into the room; it’s a giant, distorted version of Clark dressed as the pirate mascot of his store. It kills Clark and chases Mary, who runs into some men in biohazard suits while trying to escape.
The final scene of the movie sees Mary sitting down opposite a scientist (Mark Duplass), who hints that he and a large team are working full-time to try to understand what the Backrooms are. Just before the credits, we jump back to the other world, where a misshapen version of Mary sits alone in an empty room.
So, what exactly is the world beyond the door?
Credit: A24
Okay, let’s start with what it’s not. Although the Backrooms seems be created — or at least influenced — by the experiences and memories of those who encounter it, the place isn’t just a psychological figment of the imagination. It’s a real world, as is evidenced by the scientists exploring and mapping it out.
The place also isn’t a kind of hell or purgatory, at least in the literal sense. Director Kane Parsons confirmed this during an A24 podcast with producer and horror legend James Wan.
“It’s a maze-like world that doesn’t have an inherent point to it. And I think the idea, what I always appreciated, is it’s just described like it’s a natural phenomenon. There’s nothing, like, spiritual, or there’s not morality to it,” says Parsons. “It’s not hell, it’s not even like purgatory because you don’t do anything to end up there.”
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Parsons goes on to describe the Backrooms as “playing into the feeling of getting stuck in a video game.”
This segment from the interview offers our best clue into what the world really is, meaning a naturally occurring alternate dimension. It can change and grow, expanding and adapting to its environment in a way that’s reminiscent of artificial intelligence.
