*This article contains spoilers for the film The Backrooms.
Endlessly appearing rooms, fluorescent lights humming, furniture arranged without a fixed pattern, and mysterious demons form the original content of the 2022 YouTube video The Backrooms. Posted as if found footage discovered by chance, it was actually a cleverly crafted work by 16-year-old filmmaker Kane Parsons. He drew inspiration from images on the 4Chan website and created rooms using animation techniques so seamless they looked like real footage.
Parsons's video went viral across the internet, garnering over 88 million views on YouTube. Its eerie, unsettling atmosphere inspired A24 to collaborate with Parsons, giving him the chance to direct the feature film himself, backed by funding and starring accomplished actors Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve, with Will Soodik, a writer from Westworld, scripting the screenplay.
What is intriguing is that Parsons and Soodik transformed the original nearly 10-minute video into a feature-length film—a challenging task. For those familiar with The Backrooms video, it would be difficult to imagine how the mysterious rooms, demons, and characters could be developed, structured, communicated, or resolved in a full narrative.
The Backrooms focuses on Clark, an alcoholic architect sinking into despair who turns to selling cheap furniture for money. Clark carries emotional wounds from a failed relationship and seeks help from Mary Klein, a renowned psychotherapist. An electrical problem in Clark's shop leads to a strange event: a wall becomes passable, revealing an endless labyrinth of rooms with oddly arranged furniture. This mysterious space, known as the Backrooms, captivates Clark’s curiosity and obsession, causing sleepless nights spent exploring and mapping it. He eventually confides this to Mary, who finds the story unbelievable and suspects Clark might have mental health issues. Near the end, a demon in the Backrooms abducts Clark, prompting Mary to enter the Backrooms in search of him.
Viewers of the film will notice that instead of making The Backrooms a typical demon chase film with clear plot development, Parsons injects a psychological tone, exploring trauma and memory. He uses the Backrooms concept as a framework for storytelling. This article analyzes what The Backrooms communicates through its elements and scenes.
The origins and traumas of the characters.
The characters’ past traumas are central to the story. The film frequently revisits conversations and scenes about Clark’s and Mary’s histories. Clark’s narrative flashes back to a night he came home drunk and argued with his ex-wife, revealing his passionate dream to be an architect but struggling to support himself and his ex-wife with low earnings from furniture sales, which seem unsuccessful. Clark recounts his past during therapy sessions with Mary, revealing his stubbornness, attachment, and unwillingness to move forward. Though he desires change, he often insists, “Because this is who I am.”
Mary’s past trauma relates to her childhood home and mother. She never left the house as a child because her mother suffered from severe mental illness. That home was a prison she didn’t understand outside of, until her mother was hospitalized and she grew up to become a famous psychotherapist. While less is revealed about Mary’s past, it seems she constantly seeks answers, possibly becoming a psychotherapist to understand her mother’s condition and the circumstances she faced. The house symbolizes a cage, with only handprints on the wall representing fleeting moments of happiness.
Curiosity as an inherent human trait.
The Backrooms sharply critiques human curiosity, a theme visible throughout the film. The Backrooms dimension symbolizes the endless questions arising within human curiosity. Realistically, if such an event happened to us, we might avoid exploring unknown rooms (just the idea of a walk-through wall is frightening). But the film reveals genuine human behavior: curiosity drives us to enter each room, eager to discover what lies within—an instinct dating back to the Stone Age, represented by the caveman standee.
The caveman standee’s appearances are always accompanied by voices speaking multiple languages. These voices are recordings from the Voyager Golden Record—a golden vinyl record containing greetings in various languages and images depicting human civilization. The Voyager Golden Record was created to communicate with extraterrestrial life and was attached to the Voyager 1 spacecraft launched in 1977 to explore the solar system, traveling out into space without return.
“Hello, friends beyond Earth. We here on Earth send you friendly thoughts.” This is the Thai greeting many may hear when first encountering the standee.
The standee’s greetings to extraterrestrial life don’t just critique human behavior on Earth but also highlight humanity’s endless curiosity extending beyond our planet. This aligns well with the Backrooms concept—a space inviting exploration and study, sparking continuous curiosity through countless rooms with multiple entrances, and humans responding by venturing in themselves.
Beyond the endlessly appearing Backrooms, the caveman standee, and the Voyager Golden Record audio, the characters’ professions also reflect or critique human curiosity. Mary, as a psychotherapist, explores, searches, and uncovers patients’ psychological traumas. Similarly, a researcher revealed later as formerly affiliated with an MRI company reflects the investigative nature of research and study in searching within the human brain.
Throughout the film, scenes revolve around curiosity and the urge to know. For example, Clark’s young photographer assistant refuses to back down out of curiosity; Mary probes Clark’s past through talk therapy and may herself seek to understand her mother’s illness; the researchers watch rather than assist victims in the Backrooms out of curiosity. In an interview near the end, a researcher says, “I just want to know a little more,” reflecting the same inquisitive drive shared by all characters who enter the Backrooms. This desire “to know a little more” propels an endless journey.
Is past trauma truly a danger we can escape?
Viewers of The Backrooms will know the film centers on Clark’s life and perspective, with Mary’s story interwoven. However, we learn more about Clark’s struggles and experiences. The Backrooms dimension seems to be an extension of Clark’s consciousness—from piles of furniture and a distorted-faced woman-like creature to a demon dressed as an Ottoman pirate.
The author believes the distorted-faced woman resembles Clark’s ex-wife, based on Clark trying to cut her red hair to make a wig for Mary’s role-play. Clark is detained in a kitchen-like room, which may be the same kitchen where he argued before the breakup.
Thus, the Backrooms seem less a mere consciousness and more a space of memories and Clark’s identity. After the demon captures Clark, he calls Mary saying, “I found the window.” This likely doesn’t mean a literal window but symbolizes finding an escape or resolution in his life—choosing to remain trapped in the past, a safe space he cherishes and refuses to change.
This contrasts with the film’s start, where Clark seeks Mary’s help to change and improve his life. By the end, it’s clear he feels more comfortable with who he is. Clark tells Mary during his capture, “I feel I belong here and want to stay here,” showing his unwillingness to change, echoing his earlier phrase, “Because this is who I am.”
Mary realizes she can no longer help Clark or others—whether out of fear or awareness. At this moment, the Backrooms’ demon appears.
The author prefers not to call it a demon in the monster sense but an entity, meaning a being with existence, as its origin or purpose is unknown. Its appearance is known from a wall painting Mary discovers: a tall, thin black figure consuming some remains.
However, when the entity appears clearly, it does not take the form shown on the wall but wears an Ottoman pirate costume Clark once wore to promote his store, with a distorted face resembling Clark’s and incomprehensible speech.
The distorted-faced woman flees to a corner while only Clark approaches it with friendliness, saying, “We don’t have to go anymore. You said we don’t need to change.” Instead of responding with understanding, the entity grabs Clark and bites him to death.
This is because the entity does not appear in its own form but as a facet of Clark’s identity, akin to the id—part of the psyche focused on personal desires. For those familiar with the film It Follows (2014), this entity is similar: driven by emotion, desire, and violence rather than reason. The entity in The Backrooms represents Clark’s id clinging to the past, preventing him from moving on. The author is uncertain why the entity kills Clark—perhaps because Clark wavers on escaping, as suggested by Mary’s partly angry words.
The film’s ending does not resolve its mysteries like typical films. It doesn’t explain what the Backrooms dimension is or where the entity comes from—is it from hell or aliens? Instead, it leaves us unsettled alongside Mary, who receives no answers but only questions stemming from the curiosity of a researcher unconnected to the government. Mary offers no explanation but stares blankly, softly laughing as if exhausted by endless searching. The film abruptly ends, showing Mary’s distorted appearance, perhaps symbolizing her inability to escape her own past trauma.
Through this analysis, The Backrooms can also be seen as a story about a man’s tormenting fixation on his past, revolving obsessively around himself, alongside a critique of human curiosity. It reflects the normal human drive to seek and investigate past or future events to understand the present or find meaning in one’s identity.
The Backrooms is a fascinating expansion of the original video, with its own narrative depth. Thanks to A24 for giving newcomer Kane Parsons the opportunity to showcase his talent and develop his original content into a film open to diverse interpretations. The film is now available in theaters.