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-

A DIFFERENT MAN : Tuesday 12th November 2024

I got around to seeing that MA15+ Rated 'A DIFFERENT MAN' earlier this week following its release in Australia on October 24th. This American dark comedy psychological thriller film is Written and Directed by Aaron Schimberg in only his third feature film outing following 'Go Down Death' in 2013 and 'Chained for Life' in 2018. The film saw its World Premiere screening at this years Sundance Film Festival at the end of January, was released Stateside at the end of September, in the UK in early October, has so far grossed US$1.2M and has generated largely favourable reviews.

Here, Edward Lemuel (Sebastian Stan) is a struggling Actor with neurofibromatosis that manifests itself as a disfiguring facial condition. He lives in a ramshackle old apartment block with seemingly paper thin walls and floorboards and a constant dripping of black water through the ceiling in his lounge room. One day a new neighbour takes up residence, Ingrid Vold (Renate Reinsve) who is an aspiring playwright, and is working on her first theatre production although it is still early days. It doesn't take long before the pair get acquainted and Edward starts to have feelings for Ingrid, although he is way too nervous to have those feelings manifest themselves. 

He is offered a cutting edge yet still experimental medical procedure to cure him of his disfigurement which he reluctantly agrees to. Sometime later the disfiguring tumors, lumps, bumps and lesions on his face literally begin to melt away and fall off in large clumps revealing his natural healthy looking face underneath. He takes on the identity of Guy Moratz and claims to his doctor, who makes a house call to check on Edward's progress, that Edward has died suddenly by suicide, and that he is a family member who has called around to clear out Edward's apartment. This conversation is overheard by Ingrid. 

Some time later, Guy is now a successful and wealthy real estate agent. One day, he discovers that Ingrid is producing an off-Broadway play she has written called 'Edward', that is based on his life. Guy auditions and is cast in the lead role. Guy and Ingrid begin a sexual relationship soon thereafter, though Ingrid remains unaware of his real identity. During rehearsals they are visited by Oswald (Adam Pearson), a man with neurofibromatosis who has taken a keen interest in the play. The confident and charismatic Oswald quickly befriends the cast and crew, although Guy is somewhat put off by his outgoing and overly positive manner.

Ingrid and Oswald grow closer, and after Guy is unable to recite his lines, she decides to recast Oswald in the lead role. The play is a success, and Oswald's performance receives very positive reviews. Guy's mental state begins to deteriorate, and he begins stalking Oswald, is fired from his real estate job, and eventually storms the stage of the play one night to physically attack Oswald. During the on-stage scuffle, part of the set collapses on top of Guy breaking his legs and arms. While he recovers from his injuries he moves back into his former apartment next to Ingrid, who is now living with Oswald and making plans to adapt Edward into a film with movie Producer Michael Shannon. One day, after Guy's physical therapist expresses disgust for Oswald behind his back, Guy stabs him with a kitchen knife and is jailed. 

Years later, after Guy is released from prison, he comes across a billboard promoting Ingrid's most recent play. He once again encounters Oswald. He has dinner with Oswald and Ingrid at a Japanese restaurant. The pair are now very happily married and a highly successful creative duo who are planning their retirement to a commune in Canada, after Ingrid comments that she has achieved everything in life she ever really wanted - parenthood, a happy marriage and a successful career. A waiter arrives to take their orders, but a visibly nervous Guy struggles to choose from the menu. Oswald comments that he hasn't changed a bit.

'A Different Man' is part 'Beauty and the Beast', part 'The Elephant Man' and part 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' all wrapped up in a modern day story of accepting who and what we are and living with the consequences of our actions. This film has body horror, thrills, drama, emotion and laugh out loud moments courtesy of both Stan and Pearson who give their all to their respective performances. This is a thought provoking absorbing story that will leave you thinking long after the credits have rolled, with the main message left by Writer and Director Aaron Schimberg being that you can't judge a book by its cover!

'A Different Man' warrants four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-