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Backrooms
How a Modern Labyrinth Illuminates the Genius of The Shining
Today, I went to the cinema to see Backrooms.
Nothing extraordinary — just a quiet day when I decided to step into a dark theater and lose myself in a film. Yet when I stepped back out into the light, my mind was anchored to a film from 1980: Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. You buy a ticket for a brand-new horror film, only to spend the journey home thinking about a masterpiece made more than forty years ago.
Film has a wonderful way of doing that sometimes.
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: If you haven’t seen Backrooms yet, please don’t read any further!
Decoding the Labyrinth
Lately, I’ve started watching movies a little differently. I don’t just follow the plot anymore; I find myself breaking down the architecture of a story — how it builds, where it turns, and how it quietly prepares the ground for its ending. And, being a bit of a film nerd, I couldn’t help looking for nods to classic cinema along the way.
A few stood out to me:
- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre → the warped dinner scene and the stark predator-versus-prey dynamic
- The Shining → the way space itself becomes a source of psychological terror
