BACKROOMS is reason enough to heed the advice of legendary rap group Public Enemy to disbelieve the hype.
The film is directed by 20-year-old filmmaker and YouTuber Kane Parsons, who has been credited for redefining horror. If that’s the case, the future is opaque and dreary. I mean, isn’t it just amazing what some exaggerated ballyhoo can do for any inane and jaundiced feature?
Parsons’ debut is A24’s highest-grossing worldwide release, as well as the studio’s first movie to surpass $200million in ticket sales. But unfortunately, you have to be first separated from your hard-earned cash to discover that it’s all fur coat and no knickers.
Backrooms is to horror what Coldplay’s many war crimes are to music. Monotonous, uninspired, mediocre and downright unadventurous.
My teenage boys, who were far more taken with Parsons’ film than their cantankerous old pops, maintained that being clued into the YouTube lore was essential for getting the most from its sickly saffron tones. I beg to differ, but then I’m not down with the cool kids!
Backrooms, from my Victor Mildrew-ish point of view, lacks tension, it drags on longer than a Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis, and cheats its audience of any kind of reasonable pay off for their endurance.
As for being some kind of cutting edge take on cinema’s finest genre? I felt, if anything, that ideas and direction were completely what was lacking. This is a film lost in a labyrinth of its own making, with no notion of how to get from A to B with any hint of discernment.
The whole novelty factors wears off very quickly and we are left with the sad reality, that beneath the beating of drums and media hype, Backrooms is no more than a disjointed muddle with nothing new to offer.
(2/5)