Backrooms

 Have you seen this film?

There's been a lot of talk about this film, directed by 20 year old Kane Parsons, Backrooms began online,  apparently with a 4chan picture, then a webseries and a whole lot of lore surrounding these weird, unnerving spaces. Many people have spoken about it in a better way than I ever could. 

We just about managed to get a ticket on Sunday afternoon at our local cinema, other screenings were a sell out, and I can't lie, we were the oldest people there by quite some distance, the place was abuzz. 

Set in the early 1990's, the film centres around Clark a guy who after the breakdown of his marriage is living in his furniture store, which itself is failing, he's alcohol dependant, and even progress with his therapist isn't going well. One night he discovers the backrooms - a seemingly unending series of almost familiar, banal spaces, shops, offices, even swimming pools, with doors where they shouldn't be, half buried items, and weird sounds just a little too distant to figure our what they are exactly. All lit in a yellow light that would leave you with a headache for days.

Obviously no spoilers, but it doesn't go all that well.

Of the many great things about the experience (I can't stop thinking about it) it was refreshing to see something original, like the first time watching an absolute classic, or hearing that song that moves you away from the boybands and towards the black eyeliner. To put it into context, at the cinema the posters were for Toy Story 5, and the trailers were for The Mandalorian and Grogu (I'm not a Star Wars person, so to me that looked a bit like flogging a dead horse), He-Man, and Jackass - hardly era-defining fresh ideas. Here's to more new creatives and what they have to bring to this world.