The Backrooms movie..
The Backrooms movie gained a lot of recognition, whether it was getting recognized on social platforms or through the commercialization of the upcoming movie in various locations. There have been some social outlashes about the movie from non-Backrooms fans who just wanted a scare but don’t even consider the actual lore or concept that the Backrooms entails.
The Backrooms was originally an online user-generated creepypasta about an infinite space. An anonymous user posted a picture of an empty, office-like building space with yellow wallpaper, damp carpeting (reminding you of a ’90s–early 2000s office building or furniture store), with walls intersecting within the space in a maze-like order, set up for someone to try to escape from someone… or something.
Once gaining traction, levels were discovered. The endless space of walls is only the start of it all, being Level 0. Users were introduced to countless levels featuring pool rooms (Level 37), an abandoned kids’ playland (Level 283), and an infinite field of grass that leads to suburban, sketched houses (Level 365). These levels are fan-made and are presented as very dreamlike, nostalgic, and out of the ordinary, like places you would imagine seeing in your dreams or a purgatory-like setting. Very, very eerie… (I love it though!…)
And you are by no means alone in these places. Like any online horror creepypasta, there are loads of entities that are out to get you. Some meaner than others, some easier to hide from, and some absolutely impossible to escape. There are Backrooms fans across the internet who create Reels on Instagram and posts on TikTok that give you the survival rate of each level and how likely it is to escape from said location.
When I first discovered the Backrooms lore, the first element that hit me was the nostalgia when viewing the levels. I first came upon the abandoned playroom levels, the fields of grass, and a kitchen that had a window so you could clearly view the endless amount of grass. The spaces felt very nostalgic and hit core memories I had as a kid. The arcade floor had the same carpeting that the arcades in the early 2000s had, the kind of pattern that stays engraved in your mind. The kitchen was just like my childhood kitchen, with a window right above the sink and wooden cabinets that one can only attain in a certain time period.
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There are so many layers that one can dig deep into when exploring the Backrooms. The lore can go on infinitely. Can you escape this place? Will an entity get you? The video game? Sure, if you can get through all the listed levels without getting captured and consumed by an entity, go off. But let’s say this was an actual real-life parallel, alternate-universe space. I would say one’s chances are extremely low. Not only is it physically hard to find an escape through hundreds of Backrooms levels, but you are very likely to lose yourself mentally. When being presented with an out-of-the-ordinary place like the Backrooms, you yourself become out of the ordinary. Just as Clark did in the Backrooms.
Clark was weirdly fascinated with the Backrooms. But as he dug deeper into it, he lost himself and his social awareness. He was cloned and trapped and would never truly leave the Backrooms. Everyone he came across in the Backrooms was once as normal as he was in the outside world, but their original minds got taken from them and flipped once they were trapped in a lonely, deserted place of isolation and fear. Not only were demons released onto them, but so were their own demons. Without any communication from outside the Backrooms, there’s only so much you can do to remain sane for the time being kept in isolation. You can destruct yourself, as Clark did, unfortunately.
The entity Captain Clark, of course, mirrors Clark’s character and is only a speck of the mysteries uncovered in the Backrooms. There were characters who were once human but shown as still lifes, nearly unconscious replicas of real people stuffed with memory foam purposely to show what the space has done to them physically and mentally. Once people, now strangers to themselves and the world, and missing for all of eternity.
The Backrooms is an extremely interesting and cruel place that provides endless spaces filled with people who got their souls and minds stripped from them.
People wanted a physical scare, and sure, there were some jumpscares with Captain Clark, but the main focus of the movie was psychological horror: Clark’s personal torment when experiencing such a place as the Backrooms.
I hope whoever watched enjoyed it. I know I did. And now, there is a second one coming…
