What Happened to the Backrooms?

July 29, 2026

Article Preface:

A few comments about this article:

This article is a follow-up on a previous one entitled Anxiously Excited for the Backrooms Movie. The concept of the “liminal space” is brought up again. The article I just linked talks about that concept, but you can also do a quick Google search to figure out what it is. That is probably a “soft prerequisite” that would help justify why I am talking about this film and how I experienced it.
The beginning paragraph may make no sense: Why am I so upset? Consider reading the two previous articles Thank You for the Escapade and/or The Exodus Days.
“SCP” is actually an acronym that stands for “Secure. Contain. Protect.” For a brief introduction to the concept, go to the “simple” Wikipedia version of the article entitled SCP Foundation. I looked at the “normal” Wikipedia article on the subject, and I don’t actually think the current state of the Wikipedia article on the subject would make a lot of sense…

A Scathing Review of Backrooms (2026):

Just as yesterday, it is the mornings and evenings that hurt the most. It is the vacancy, the dashed line outlining the boundary of where someone should be, or where the memory died, that clogs up my throat. It was in the evening that I started to well up. This welling was due in part to my return to the soundtrack of . And the reason I returned to this soundtrack was because I just arrived home from watching the film, a movie anticipated to evoke cosmic mystery and the uncanny comfort that the rooms radiate—or so I thought it would.

The Backrooms film was underwhelming. I wrote previously how excited I was to see the liminal space depicted on the big screen. This did not occur to my satisfaction. I also wrote about how I was interested to see how the horror aspects defining the Backrooms “genre” and the liminal space itself as a separate concept intermingled; on the screen, the horror aspects dominated. Worse, the movie was not frightening in the slightest. Other recent films, more traditionally in-line with horror cinema, such as (produced by the same studio that made this movie, A24), , and (I imagine, because I haven’t actually seen it yet) , are thoroughly scary. The Backrooms film did not even cultivate a dominating atmosphere of uncertainty and dread. This is ironic, because the entire premise is that a maze-dweller is always oppressed by the “indoorness” of the Backrooms’ non-Euclidean, infinitely-foliating labyrinth, and thereby always surrounded by mystery and threat.

It is unfair of me to globally dismiss this film from its place in horror cinema. After all, I am somebody who has spend a great deal of time immersed in the Internet culture of the liminal space and the Backrooms. And, pertinently, I must invoke the detail that I am also invested in the Internet culture called SCP. (And Slenderman, which was also made into a disappointing film: .) So, the unsettling aspects of horror, such as furniture “merged” into (noclipping through) the ground did not send a shudder through me the way it might have other people who, as two of my friends said, were “going in blind.” No, the liminal horror did not affect me in that manner; I likely was already adjusted to the geometric frustration that is commonly depicted in Backrooms aesthetics.

What about the other horrific elements?

I found The Lifeform of the original short film scarier than those that appeared in the movie. Its name perhaps provides a hint as to why this might be the case: it is not necessarily human in form or behavior. The entities in the movie are all human in form. Now, any moderate consumer of Backrooms content, such as those who’ve played the famous Steam game , will know that you are chased by all kinds of monstrosities. For me, the scariest one was without a doubt the revolting, rotten and decrepit figure of the Partygoer. They’re docile, happily holding their singular party balloon with a wide smile on their face—unless they see you. Then they dart at once in your direction and do not return to their original docile, party-going state until you have vanished from their sight. And that is only in reference to the game. There are images floating about online of other imagined Backrooms monsters that command their liminal jurisdiction and are not featured in any sort of game. Here was an opportunity to introduce these domineering creatures. It was time to show the broader audience, not just those attuned to the Internet happenings about the Backrooms, just what kinds of monstrosities really roam these infinite halls or these abandoned poolrooms.

Aside from its inability to seed an enveloping dread or terror, the most disheartening aspect of the film was that it was confused: there was no plot. Of course, there were aspects of and commentary about loss and grief and disappointment. Sadly, it felt as if the movie treated the Backrooms as nothing beyond a “cool and/or scary place” without fully tethering it to this commentary, to the characters’ lives. The only attempt to connect the plot with the characters’ happenings in real life occurred during the showdown between Clark and his therapist, Mary. By this point in the movie, Clark has been driven crazy by the absurd infinitude of the rooms. This is something that the audience does not get to experience with him but rather are supposed to infer on the basis that “anyone who ends up in these infinite hallways would certainly go crazy.” He needed to achieve psychological closure through a holistic re-enactment of a domestic dispute between him and his ex-wife, essentially so he could berate her one last time. And that is what he does, with Mary taking the role of his ex-wife. But this scene had nothing to do with the Backrooms in essence, other than the table being populated by the “glitched” people. It was disquieting to watch because it was effectively a re-enactment of domestic abuse rather than a revelation as to precisely how the Backrooms drove Clark crazy. If the audience were presented with a single bone to gnaw on regarding how Clark became more of a psychopath in the rooms, then we might’ve harbored some sympathy towards him; then we might have understood where he was coming from. Instead, I just felt bad for Mary. And, ultimately, Clark gets gnawed up by his own Backrooms-mutated monster, and we don’t see him again.

Now, there was most certainly an explanation that was offered about what the Backrooms is (or does). I found myself coming to appreciate this explanation more and more, though it does not rescue the film’s lack of narrative cohesion. I also realized over time that it might be consumers of the SCP Internet genre that are best equipped to understand where an explanation such as this would come from. The main idea was that the Backrooms is an amalgamation of one’s memories, and, crucially, those memories that have been revisited frequently and thus (neurobiologically realistic, too!) inexorably changed in some manner. Therefore, the monsters of the Backrooms are understood to be re-remembered instances of people, and the aesthetic of the Backrooms comes from re-remembered locations.

A friend of mine who also saw the film had to explain to me the aforementioned “mechanic” of the Backrooms. Apparently, I was supposed to zero in on the scene in which (I guess it was) Mary’s living room comes “falling down” the tiers of the Backrooms into increasingly banal and spoiled representations of what was originally a vivid and colorful scene of home. In the heat of watching the movie, this scene did not strike any chord of recognition within me; I was quite lost at this point. In retrospect, the symbolism was pretty obvious, but Mary’s story had been interwoven into the main story by a collection of unannounced flashbacks to her childhood. It confused the chronology I had in my head, especially because I was not adept at telling Mary’s mother and Mary herself apart…

Before we get any answers as to what might possibly be going on, we find that Mary has now morphed into a misremembered zombie and the movie ends. We are given merely a hint that Clark was pivotal in finding one of many ‘openings’ to the Backrooms spaced out across the planet. Before Mary transforms into a zombie, though, she is interrogated by a “Backrooms tech” person, featured only thrice throughout the film. The character plays an insignificant role in the film despite appearing as if he would become pivotal to the “suppression” or “regulation” of the Backrooms’ power. In addition to this mannequin of a character, the two snotty employees of Clark’s store served as nothing more than comic relief. So, it was actually enjoyable when they were devoured. In what seems like nothing other than a wild oversight, these characters did not return to the movie after this moment even in the demented post-remembered form that these Backrooms creatures take on.

was hopelessly abstract and ended when it should have begun. It is interesting that I am criticizing the film for being so abstract when that is perhaps part of the intention: After all, if a story has no net direction and is packed with abstraction, then it is often argued that that is precisely its beauty: It can now effectively represent anything that the audience wants it to represent. Now, for example, the people on YouTube can have a field day offering theory after theory in hour-long video essays, enrapturing their confused yet captivated audience in elaborate explanations that so roughly interpolate between the scenes of the film that they effectively “overfit the plot.” So, I sheepishly find myself with the subterranean impulse to criticise the film for generating an “extracurricular” content economy.

On the other hand, the appeal to abstraction can qualify as realistic: If the universe really is absurd, in the sense that we must contend with the absence of any overarching meaning in the slightest, then any piece of absurd work is intensely realistic! If the Backrooms can’t be explained because they do not admit an explanation—as an explanation for something entails it contains some underlying structure—then it is an ideal playground for exploring our contention with the Absurd. Except the Absurd has been depicted in a coherent framework before—namely, in Albert Camus’s seminal work . So, Mr. Clark was wrong in saying, “It’s like trying to explain what a dog is to a person who hasn’t seen a dog before.” In fact, in Kane Parson’s original short film about the Backrooms that started this whole thing, that is precisely what is conveyed: The lone man behind the camera, through no fault of his own, noclips through the ground into the Backrooms, is chased by the reigning entity, and then ends up being ejected out of the Backrooms and falls out of the sky to his death (presumably). Why did any of this happen to him? The universe answers in unreasonable silence.

In addition, contending with the Absurd involves the human struggle evoked from coming to terms with this reality. Part of this conflict arises due to the intrinsically human desire to tell a story in the first place, to craft some coherent chronology with which to relate a later happening to a previous one, and to anticipate what may come next. does not tell a story; it is a collection of disturbing happenings. I guess that means it was realistic!

Now, there absolutely is one aspect of the film that I really enjoyed: the acting. Part of what contributed to the immersion in the first part of the movie was undoubtedly the extended scenes of Clark exploring the maze, contending with its infinitude, and hiding from the things that go bump in the night. Think about how these scenes might have been filmed in practice: it was a completely solo performance, with tons of folks standing behind fancy camera equipment, peering at you through monitor after monitor. And through subtle facial expressions, like a furrowed forehead, eyes darting side to side, noises of exasperation like gulping, glistening sweat on your forehead, and stammered movements, you convey the sheer, horrific awe of being engulfed in the mysterious maze. Even the “crouch walk” was compelling: It’s exactly how I might explore an off-limits construction site, such as Ballantine Hall back in 2018. The oppressive dimensions of the Backrooms hallways call you to contract your physical presence. Only Chiwetel Ejiofor could have pulled it off. It was a pleasure watching his performance.

Another impressive showcase of acting in the film was Mary’s escape from Clark’s monster, Captain Clark. To be able to perform all of the choreography, like grabbing a tall, wooden hanger and taking a swing at Captain Clark’s peg leg and tripping over various furniture items in the re-remembered store—that was incredible. And there was even an uncanny moment during the scene when Mary effectively escapes Captain Clark’s monstrous grasp but pauses before disappearing from the creature’s sight. She looks into the hulking creature’s confused and bewildered eyes with a look of recognition and perhaps sympathy. Should we have sympathy for this aberration? we think in this slowed moment. Is Clark somehow trapped behind it? It was actually in this scene that I felt the familiar tremors that induced within me. But I could not tell what the movie wanted me to think about it.

And there is one final thing that we must acknowledge: The movie featured the picture that inspired the entire Backrooms franchise as part of its POV footage. It was an obvious easter egg for anybody who came to watch the movie after finding themselves entranced by the feelings evoked by liminal spaces. I appreciated it, A24! When I saw the image, I immediately turned to all my friends sitting alongside me in the movie theater. They didn’t register a thing!

Now, after discussing it with friends, I caught wind of the plan that Kane Parsons was going to embed this standalone movie in a sprawling series. In that regard, one can justify the inconclusive ending by saying “wait until the next installment!” But it was not clear to me if moviegoers had any idea of this plan—entirely external to the film itself—and so the criticism is fair: the standalone movie ended too early.

There was plenty more to do in this standalone movie: explore the rooms, escape the rooms (the name of the Steam game), figure out the rooms, or, in classic “survival horror” fashion, try to “conquer” the rooms/entities, as fans of the SCP short films SCP: OVERLORD and SCP: Dollhouse and SCP: First Contact might expect—which are riveting watches, by the way! If they wanted to offer more commentary on navigating personal strife, there are also many video games in which a character comes to terms with their suffering and/or hamartia through an exploration of a mysterious location, the main one that comes to mind is . Of course, I suppose Clark never came to terms with his fractured self, and the Backrooms facilitated his deterioration rather than his catharsis.

I’ll of course stay tuned to any new media developments regarding the Backrooms and its popular perception. I think there is still a lot of opportunity to discuss the concept despite my criticism of this film. I am glad overall that the notion of liminal spaces and the Backrooms has escaped the confinement to niche Internet corners and into a broader audience. Maybe, just maybe, some people are now seeing this…

Notes/References

The particular piece of audio in the film that I was listening to was David Wingo - Lightning.
“I wrote previously how excited I was to see the liminal space depicted on the big screen.” The “previous writing” is in the article mentioned in the Article Preface, entitled Anxiously Excited for the Backrooms Movie.
Weird of me to guess that is “traditional horror cinema” when I haven’t seen it. But I did see the trailer… Does that count?
The Slenderman has a long history. It is a fictional monster that originated on an Internet forum, and I was fascinated by it when I was younger. There were a million video games derived from it, the most famous one (probably) being .
What is “noclipping?” This is a term from video game development. To “noclip” through something is to basically disable collisions between two models in a game. In talking about the Backrooms, the vernacular is typically “to noclip through [to the Backrooms],” and that is how people find themselves in the Backrooms.
As mentioned in Anxiously Excited for the Backrooms Movie, “The Lifeform” is the main monster featured in Kane Parsons’ original short film The Backrooms (Found Footage).
The Partygoer monster is from the video game . Seemingly docile, happily listening to the absolute masterpiece of a song insOmic - You Day! (Escape the Backrooms OST), when they catch you sneaking around their Chuck E. Cheese-styled halls, they immediately dash in your direction and eat you alive. They’re really difficult to evade… That was one of the hardest parts of the game!
It is true: Whenever we revisit a memory, we inexorably alter it; it is never preserved in its essence. This feature of our ``inner lives" I believe ought to escape the circles of readers of these kinds of subjects and find rest atop our wider social fabric: our memories are fallible!
“…overfit the plot” may not make any sense if you don’t know what I mean by “overfit(ting).” This is terminology used in quantitative sciences to describe the use of a tremendously complicated mathematical function in order to “fit” a relatively simple trend in data. For example, if you collect data that you know to be linearly correlated (i.e. to be described according to $y = m x + b$ , with some noise, of course) but decide to use an extremely complicated function to relate $x$ and $y$ , then you’re grossly overfitting the dataset. (FYI: Be prepared to hear the word “overfitting” a lot in any type of AI technology/machine learning-related discussion.) If that explanation does not make enough sense, then I recommend getting a visual representation of this concept by glancing at the pictures available on the Wikipedia article about the subject of overfitting. I think the best diagram (currently available) depicting the idea is this one.
What is this capital-A “Absurd” that I am talking about here? This is a philosophical concept whose thorough investigation is typically attributed to Albert Camus. The Absurd is sort of a “state of mind” where we humans must contend with the apparent observation that our surrounding universe does not offer any objective meaning to us, and our (vain) attempt to accept that truth. It is different from barebones Existentialism, because this philosophy advances that the response ought to be to “create your own meaning.” On the other hand, Absurdism does not really offer a “solution” the way Existentialism does; it merely wishes to emphasize the conceptual problem at hand.
The words “unreasonable silence” are used in Camus’ .
The original picture that inspired the entire Internet culture and now franchise is available on Wikipedia here for viewing. If I am not mistaken, this exact image is shown momentarily in the film.
The three short films I linked to, SCP: OVERLORD, SCP: Dollhouse, and SCP: First Contact, are excellent. The third one is in fact a “machinima” (movie made with video game assets), but you may not be able to tell that upon your first viewing because it is so smoothly put together! I highly recommend these short films.
The last line of this article, “Maybe, just maybe, some people are now seeing this,” is just how I ended Anxiously Excited for the Backrooms Movie. It is derived from the movie clip of that I always return to, which is Take Shelter - “Is anyone seeing this?” .

Updates:

2026-08-31: Renumbered the notes and found more references for them.