BACKROOMS : Tuesday 2nd June 2026

I saw the M Rated 'BACKROOMS' earlier this week, and this American Sci-Fi psychological horror film is Directed and Co-Scored by Kane Parsons. This is his feature film making debut, and is based on his own web series published in January 2022 as the short film 'The Backrooms (Found Footage)' which he posted to his YouTube channel, and which went viral and expanded into twenty-four more short films culminating in a web series that has had 77 million views as of May 2026. The film Premiered in Los Angeles in early May and was released in the US and here in Australia last week, having received positive critical reviews and grossing so far US$140M at the global Box Office from a production budget of US$10M. It has also made the twenty-year-old Kane Parsons the youngest filmmaker to reach number one at the American Box Office. As recently as last month Kane Parsons confirmed that he was not done with 'Backrooms', and already this month he is actively searching for a screenwriting collaborator to work with on the sequel.

It is 1990, and a group of scientists from the Async Research Institute watch recovered video filmed by researcher Naren Warne (Avan Jogia), who, while on an expedition into a vast apparently never ending extradimensional space was separated from his group and chased, attacked and seemingly killed by an unknown entity. 

Furniture store owner and failed architect Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is struggling to cope with his alcoholism and the recent breakdown of his marriage. He regularly meets with therapist Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve), who is working through her own childhood trauma related to her agoraphobic, paranoid mother following the demolition of the home she grew up in, to make way for a fifty storey high condo tower. Clark is preoccupied with the store's escalating finances, and in particular his electricity bill. He hires an electrician to investigate the cause of this, including regular occurrences of flickering lights. The electrician finds three coloured breaker switches installed at an odd angle at the base of the distribution board that, as far as he can tell do not connect to anything inside the store.

Clark, who bemoans to Mary that his ex-wife kicked him out of the home he paid for, and whose tuition he is paying for in order that she can become a lawyer, takes to living in his store. Clark experiences continued electrical irregularities including flickering lights and his TV cutting out unexpectedly. This leads him down to the basement level, where out of frustration his flicks all the electrical switches on the distribution board to off. Upon turning to leave and go back upstairs, he notices a glowing narrow slit in a wall, that would have been invisible with the lights on. He tentatively touches the wall adjacent to the sighted split and falls through the wall into the Backrooms - a labrynthine and chaotic expanse of dull yellow rooms, long corridors and misplaced and malformed furniture - some of it standing alone, and some of it stacked high randomly. The rooms are eerily silent apart from the constant low hum of the overhead fluorescent lights. Clark decides to investigate and this leads him to finding Naren's belongings. He narrowly escapes back to the store when an unseen creature chases him. Async scientist Phil (Mark Duplass) watches these events as they occur via a surveillance camera. 

Clark, in his next session with Mary, tells her about the Backrooms but is met with a high degree skepticism, even though he is decidedly nervous to the point of physically shaking. He further says that he has visited them many times since his last meeting with her and has drawn a map of the layout of what he had seen up to that point. 

He recruits his assistant manager, Kat (Lukita Maxwell), and her boyfriend, Bobby (Finn Bennett), to help him film the Backrooms as proof of his claims. The trio enter and record their discoveries, even though Kat is very reluctant while Bobby is gung-ho about the prospect. While exploring a steeply sloped corridor, Bobby is ambushed and apparently killed by an unseen entity, which drags him along with Clark and Kat into an unexplored area where they are separated. Clark runs through various bizarre and disordered spaces, eventually coming across humanoid entities in a red lit room with a glowing Christmas tree in the centre. He is chased to a dead end. He hears Kat call out to him from behind a wall, and places the camera down to look for a concealed door to reach her. Something unknown then picks up the camera, as Kat screams for Clark to look behind him. 

Later, Mary receives a message on her answering machine from Clark, who tells her that he will not be returning for more sessions. Meanwhile, while watching TV with his family, Phil recognises Clark in an ad for his furniture store - where Clark is dressed up as a one legged pirate Cap'n Clark (the mascot of his store). Mary visits the store, finds it deserted but the front door open. She ventures down to the basement level where she notices the outline of the door etched on to the wall previously by Clark, and his map drawn out on a whiteboard. She passes through the doorway into the Backrooms. Fairly soon, she comes across Clark, who chokes her into unconsciousness.

Mary comes round with her arms tied to a chair, with Clark looking on in a space resembling a dining room. They are joined by three monstrous imitations of humans that the Backrooms creates, who look on impassively as he reveals Kat's severed head in a refrigerator. Clark demands that Mary continue their therapy sessions via role-play, but Mary declines, instead revealing that Clark's refusal to take responsibility for his failures was the real reason his wife left him. Clark seems to comes to his senses and releases Mary from her binds, but they are interrupted by the arrival of a towering, distorted replica of Cap'n Clark (Robert Bobroczkyi). Clark is killed while trying to calm the pirate being, which then chases Mary through a seemingly endless maze of chaotic and surreal spaces. 

Cornered by the towering Cap'n Clark in an imperfect copy of the store's showroom, she fights it off using a chunk of concrete with her childhood handprint embedded into it, which she retrieved as a keepsake from the home she was raised in. She uses this to repeatedly bash into Cap'n Clarks face, until it breaks into several pieces. Their struggle triggers an Async gas trap, alerting a group of researchers in hazmat suits, who subdue the entity and take Mary back to their research facility.

Following her recovery, Mary is brought to an interrogation room where she meets Phil. He explains that Async use to manufacture MRI machines until they discovered the Backrooms, which has since become the primary focus of their ongoing research, which is perhaps the most important development in the history of mankind. When asked how she came across the Backrooms and what she found there, she repeats Clark's description of it as a faulty, misremembered copy of reality. Mary asks if Async plans to let her go, but Phil replies evasively. Inside the Backrooms, a series of spaces are depicted by Mary's memories of trauma, ending in a loosely copied interrogation room in which a fractured, deformed Mary sits still, silent and glaring aimlessly into space.

At just twenty-years-of-age, Director Kane Parsons has already stamped his name on the horror genre as a future film maker to be reckoned with. With 'Backrooms' he has here crafted a film induced with fear, dread and anxiety as he ramps up the tension and the atmospheric unease to an unexpected conclusion in which our two protagonists buy the farm. The production values, the score, and the casting are all top notch, and its pleasing to see Ejiofor and Reinsve largely playing against type here and giving it their all in the process. I wouldn't necessarily describe 'Backrooms' as a horror film per se, but more of a dramatic thriller, as it is light on jump scares and blood and gore, but what it does ably deliver is a sense of claustrophobia, disturbing visuals, and unsettling themes that will leave you pondering the film you have just seen long after the end credits have rolled. It is certainly worthy of the price of your cinema ticket, and you should really see it on the big screen to gain an appreciation of the world that Kane Parsons has created for us. 

'Backrooms' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

WARFARE : Tuesday 29th April 2025.

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'WARFARE' this week, and this war action film is Written and Directed by Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland and is based on Mendoza's experiences during the Iraq War as a former US Navy SEAL. Alex Garland's prior feature film making credits take in his debut with 'Ex Machina' in 2014, then 'Annihilation' in 2018, 'Men' in 2022 and 'Civil War' most recently last year. The film saw its World Premiere showcasing in mid-March, was released in the USA in early April, here and in the UK from mid-April, has garnered generally favourable critical press and has so far grossed US$26M from a production budget of US$20M. In order to maintain historical accuracy, the film's material is exclusively taken from the testimonies of the platoon members, and is depicted in real time.

Here then, a platoon of Navy SEAL's embark on a dangerous surveillance mission in Ramadi, Iraq on 19th November. 2006. Under cover of the dead of night the platoon (call sign Alpha One) takes control of a house, and wakens a husband and wife and their two young children. They quickly learn from the family that the upper level is a separate apartment, that is blocked off by a brick wall which they breach to access it. 

JTAC (Joint Terminal Attack Controller) communications officer Ray Mendoza (D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai) coordinates air support to monitor their position while sniper and medic Elliott Miller (Cosmo Jarvis) monitors the various locals comings and goings at a market across the street, through the telescopic sight on his sniper rifle. They are performing overwatch duties in support of a US Marines operation.

Translators Farid (Nathan Altai) and Noor (Donya Hussen) learn from the family that there is another family living upstairs. They instruct them all to remain silent and in place. Ray and Elliott observe increased activity across the street. ANGLICO (Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company) LT McDonald (Michael Gandolfini) radios for air assets while the translators advise that the enemy has broadcast a call to arms. Leading Officer in Charge Erik (Will Poulter) instructs the translators to guard the upstairs part of the building. A grenade is thrown into the sniper's room injuring Elliott's hand. A CASEVAC (Casualty Evacuation) is called to evacuate him. In preparation, the team gathers their weapons and blow Claymore mines off the top floor balcony to create a distraction. As the Bradley (Fighting Vehicle) arrives to collect Elliott, and undercover of a smoke screen, an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) explodes close by killing a translator and further wounding Elliott and Leading Petty Officer Sam (Joseph Quinn). The Bradley departs the scene of the carnage.

Having gradually come round dazed and confused by what has just moments ago transpired, the Alpha One unit retreats and regroups in the house while tending to Sam's shredded legs. Erik calls team Alpha Two to collapse into their position, but they are held up by firefights further down the street. Air support returns but due to opposing fire McDonald can only coordinate a show of force (intended to warn or to intimidate an opponent by showcasing a capability or will to act if one is provoked) by a low level jet fighter. Ray determines Sam requires a tourniquet but is unable to apply it due to his quivering hands, and so instead packs the wound with gauze and places his knee on Sam's wound, increasing Sam's agony. Ray dissociates, and so Erik takes over and applies the tourniquet. Elliott regains consciousness and screams in pain as McDonald tends to his injuries. Elliott, through his pain directs McDonald to the morphine in his bag which McDonald then administers to him and Sam, giving them some relief only.

Alpha Two make it into Alpha One's building. Their request for medical evacuation is denied for fear of another IED attack. Alpha Two leader Jake (Charles Melton) orders his communications officer, John (Finn Bennett), to impersonate the army commanding officer to approve their evacuation. Jake retrieves gear from the street before Elliott and Sam are hurriedly loaded into the two Bradleys. The team returns to the house. Believing insurgents may have infiltrated the second floor from the roof, Jake orders two other Bradleys to take out the top deck of their building. Under cover of another show of force, the Alpha One and Alpha Two men are extracted by the Bradleys and leave the neighbourhood under heavy small arms fire. The families in the house slowly emerge from their rooms and survey what remains of their home, realising the soldiers have left. The surviving insurgents cautiously gather in the street when the dust has settled and study the bloodied dismembered remains of what is left of the Iraqi translator. 

Based on a true story of the fairly recent past and told with all the chaos and brotherhood of war retold through their memories of the event, the team of Alpha One together with joint Directors Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland have crafted an immersive, visceral and realistic retelling of the physical and emotional toll of modern warfare. The performances from the principle cast are all top notch and each one played with conviction and determination to do justice to the men who served on that fateful mission, the sound design is near perfect, and the real time film making serves to add urgency and tension to an already fraught situation. This no-holds barred, intense and authentic cinematic experience is best seen on the big screen and easily stands up there with Scott's 'Black Hawk Down', Spielberg's 'Saving Private Ryan' and Berger's 'All Quiet on the Western Front' as a must see film of the futility of war. My only gripe of this film is that there is zero backstory to Alpha One's platoon members, but I'm guessing that this was intentional on the part of the Co-Director's, who didn't want to get bogged down by leaning in to the history of the individuals, rather concentrating on the here and now and let the intense action, the emotion and the physicality of the rapidly unfolding situation do the talking. 

'Warfare' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-