Backrooms (2026)
A review by Jason Pike · dir. Kane Parsons · A24
The short version (no spoilers)
I came into the internet's favorite nightmare fully unencumbered by the lore. This was my first encounter, and it made a huge splash on the big screen in a very loud way. I did some research and found out this is the biggest opening in A24's history. Kane Parsons' take on the humming, fluorescent creepypasta turned it into a genuinely unsettling feature, a what if your dreams and memories became manifest in the real world.
I didn't know what to expect coming in, and the setup caught me: a ho-hum world of people living drab, empty lives filled with alcohol, weed, and disturbing dreams, everyone carrying the baggage of life they haul around with them. It made me wonder where the film was going to go with it.
I felt completely lost the first time around. It was novel, but I was unsure of it, and I might have left it there. Then I talked about it with my wife, and found out she's a super fan of the whole thing. She walked me through the lore: people posting wrong-feeling liminal spaces on Reddit, the YouTube videos, that not-quite-right, almost-déjà-vu feeling.
That first watch gave me curiosity and a WTF. I didn't know the rules, so every room was a question, what's going to happen, where are they headed? So many questions rolled through my mind, and I knew things were about to go bad. I just didn't know how.
Releasing an extended cut was a brilliant move, it drew Karly like a mothwoman to a flame. We have the Regal passes, so besides the booking fee it cost us nothing. I'm glad I went to the second showing. I could take a step back, knowing what was coming, if not fully steeped in the lore that came before the film, and actually grasp some of the bigger ideas.
The one real warning: this movie expects you to have done your homework. It leans toward too little explanation, on the assumption that you follow the YouTube series, the Reddit threads, the liminal-space videos, or played the game, or all of the above. I'd done none of that going in, and it still worked. It worked even better the second time around, thankfully, I had a walking wiki of information: Karly.
My advice: watch the standard cut first, then the extended cut, not the other way around.
Verdict: 7.5 / 10, a genuinely eerie, confident film. Best experienced blind the first time, then again with the lore in hand the second.
His & hers
Jason: 7.5/10
Came in cold to the lore and felt lost the first time, then Karly walked him through it and the second watch clicked. Loved the atmosphere and the "dreams made manifest" premise. Liked it better the second time.
Karly: ♥♥♥♥♥
I've loved the Backrooms for years, so when the trailer dropped I clocked it instantly and started squealing like a hungry baby pterodactyl. I love this movie, the switch between found footage and regular scenes adds an air of creepiness that captures the fandom perfectly, and the acting really sells it. It leaves you questioning and wanting more. My only con: I wish it were longer, please give us another installment.
The full take SPOILERS
The scenes that stuck with me
- The therapist role-play (opening). This one got me personally, I've been through stuff like that. You feel his desperation: stuck in a dead-end job and career, not doing the things he actually wants to do. That ache is the emotional engine of the whole movie.
- The electrician and the panel. Him staring at the electrical panel with those weird breakers, a perfect small "something is wrong here" beat.
- "Weed doesn't count." Introducing his assistant manager and her cameraman boyfriend to the backrooms behind the taped-shut door. She asks, "Did he dose us? Are we high?" Boyfriend: "I'm not high." She tells him yes, he is, he smoked weed. His reply: "Weed doesn't count." A great release-valve laugh in the middle of the dread.
The details that reward you
You can tell something's deeply wrong when the cameraman heads down the tunnel into the basement, dark, filthy, splattered, what looks like fecal matter everywhere. And the quiet gut-punch of foreshadowing: the cameraman's shirt from the start of the movie turns up in the dirty pile of clothes. The building already knows how this ends.
What it's actually about (my read, second watch)
Here's what clicked the second time, and what the Async post-credits confirmed: the Backrooms conform to and re-create themselves from whoever enters. When the main character walks in, his store gets mirrored and distorted back at him, and his heavy mental illness gets projected into that 8-foot-tall pirate monster, a warped giant version of himself. The space is a mirror for the psyche. That's the key the movie withholds on first watch, which is exactly why the first watch is scarier and the second is more legible.
Karly's read (the resident super-fan)
Karly's angle: she loves that it's about being trapped in your own mind and realizing you're the problem plaguing you, and that the Backrooms feel slightly "off" because they're built from fading memories. Her one wish: a sequel that digs into the researchers' backstory we glimpse throughout.
Reference / wiki
Review & interpretation: Jason Pike (two viewings), with Karly. Facts & reception: Rotten Tomatoes, Variety, ScreenRant, The Wrap, Forbes, Wikipedia, as of July 2026.