Brief Story Line
Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor - The Old Guard 2, Doctor Strange etc) was the owner of a struggling furniture store who was having problem dealing with his failed marriage and alcohol addiction. He was seeing a psychiatrist Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve - Presumed Innocent TV series, Sentimental Value etc) to help him cope with his issues.
As he was kicked out of his home, Clark had to live in the store when he noticed that lights were flickering there. Trying to find the source of the problem, Clark somehow found a weird set of unlimited rooms. In order to prove it was not something he imagined, Clark enlisted the help from his assistant manager Kat (Lukita Maxwell - Shrinking TV series etc) and her boyfriend Bobby (Finn Bennett - A Knight of the Seven Kingdom TV series etc) who had a video camera, without knowing it would endanger all of them.
So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
As you must have already known (if you read my previous posts), I am not a major fan of horror movies except certain kind which I could still enjoy. When I read that this was a sci-fi horror genre, I thought it should not be too frightening for me. But the opening scene of this film was actually pretty horrifying. It was using a found footage style and supported by pretty good sound effect which made it more terrifying. The thing that made this movie scary was the horror of not knowing what to expect. I believed the unknown factor was what made it petrifying for me.
During the whole film though, it was not full of the found footage style scenes and there were plenty of times we were shown more dramatic moments which was probably the reason people also classified this as psychological horror. I got to say that Chiwetel Ejiofor did great job in portraying his character, as did Renate Reinsve. Aside from those above, the additional cast only consisted of Mark Duplass (The Morning Show TV series etc) as the mysterious guy who knew about the rooms and very few others.
After seeing the whole film, I thought that the scariest part were actually during the scenes in the backrooms shot in found-footage style. The final third was OK and pretty suspenseful, but the ending was not too satisfying for me, like it was purposely set to intrigue us for more. To be honest, I felt this film was a very long episode of Twilight Zone series due to its ending. It should not come as a surprise since it was based on popular web series also titled Backrooms created by Youtuber Kane Parsons who also directed this feature film. It was written by Will Soodik who was experienced in writing for TV series like Homeland, Westworld etc. Oh before I forgot, a bit out of topic but there were brief Indonesian language here that caught me by surprise
Critics have been very positive about the movie as did many audience. Its Box Office performance was shockingly very good, already reaching > USD 200 million by the time I wrote this post against a USD 10 million budget. However for me, even though it was rather inventive to create these backrooms, I found it to be OK enough. Just not up to the level of extremely good like most people said it was. Nevertheless I admired the creativity of Kane Parsons and his ability to direct this. I just felt that I would have been more satisfied if I watched the series instead, with probably more information revealed as it progressed. Plus I was also confused the reason for showing Dr. Mary's background which would have been more satisfying if it was written in a different way (not sure though if anyone else also saw it the way I did).
Btw the movie had a duration of 110 minutes including closing credits. There was no mid or post end credit scene here so you can immediately leave the theater if you want. In the end, this is a fine sci-fi horror movie which relied on the unknown factor and got some well executed found-footage style scenes that were terrifying. It also combined a bit of pscyhological horror supported by good performances by its two lead cast. However its ending did not really satisfy me and felt like an episode of a series it was based on. I think the movie maker could not have concluded it properly as it would have made the series lose its appeal. So if you are in the mood for such horror movie, you can certainly give it a try and might enjoy it a lot just like critics did. And if you are fans of the youtube series, I think you would definitely love watching it on large screen of a cinema. But if you are hoping for a conclusive ending, then this might feel a bit unsatisfactory like it did to me. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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