About five minutes into Backrooms, I got the unsettling feeling that director Kane Parsons was romanticizing a time he had never experienced but that I have intimate knowledge of. 2026 is a time where nobody has to be bored if they don’t want to be; it’s apparently somewhat of a common question from young people what we did with our time before smartphones, and it’s just as common to respond with the shocked and horrified realization that we don’t know. Backrooms is not so-called ‘slow cinema’, but it definitely draws from some of the same sensibility; long before we end up in the eponymous backrooms, we’re subjected to long pauses in the dialogue and long glances over strange, liminal spaces.
There’s been a lot of talk about our current relationship with boredom; it’s become clear that boredom and nothingness is a necessary part of the human experience. Long patches of the day where you do nothing are times when the brain and body rests, reflects, and processes information you’ve picked up. I believe part of Parson’s goal with Backrooms is providing both a place in the cinema where you can do that and to make you notice and even look for that feeling outside of the theater.
By far the best part of the film is when Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is first wandering around the Backrooms. It feels trite to point out how well it captures the experience of wandering around an area you know you’re not supposed to be in; everything is both familiar and alien. One of its clever moves is that it’s actually recycling a very old video game concept in a very different medium, which is how it fits into the creepypasta internet horror story tradition; it’s specifically riffing on the concept of noclipping, in which graphics in a game (due to errors in programming) end up moving through one another, with the most extreme examples involving the player character themselves falling out of the world.
This creates an uncanny and very simple effect: things are just offbeat enough for you to try and make sense of them. You see the objects embedded within walls and you try to work out the story being told here; it’s not so alien that you make no sense of it, so you end up trying to explain it in your own head. Not only do you wonder how the objects got here in the first place (my favourite example is the reversed stop sign), but you wonder where they originally were. Who’s shoes were embedded into the ground?
Parson’s answer works very well for the emotional arc he’s telling in this film: it’s a subjective space mirroring the real world. I rolled my eyes at the whole ‘therapists are unprepared for how crazy real people are’ thing at first – though my partner, more experienced with therapy than I, found it satisfying and realistic, as therapists are really the first port of call and would kick your problem up the chain if necessary – but the conclusion, in which Clark turns the idea that he doesn’t want to change into the idea that he doesn’t have to change – to be as profound a conclusion as you could get from that idea. The final shot of Pirate Clark, reaching for the therapist with that sad, pathetic expression is incredibly poignant; all Clark wanted to do was connect to other people.
(This also reflects that Parson’s strength lies in his command of visuals; the dialogue is incredibly overwritten)
This is how the movie all connects together. We need spaces like the Backrooms to contemplate and reflect; the more we run away from them, the more violent their expression becomes. It’s why I appreciate places like Media Magpies, where I am afforded the place to think out loud. Writing – especially handwriting, oddly enough – forces you to articulate and name feelings and thoughts, allowing you to process and name them; arthouse cinema like Backrooms give you a jumping off point for that kind of thinking. After watching the movie, I used a public toilet, and found myself looking at the room as if it were a backroom.
About the writer
Tristan J. Nankervis
Tristan J Nankervis (aka Drunk Napoleon) has been a writer, pop culture critic, dishwasher, standup comedian, waiter, potato cake factory worker, gamer, TV worker, and various other things. You can find him in Hobart, Tasmania.
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Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
Happy Endings, Season One, Episode Eleven, “Girl With The David Tattoo”
“He’d probably get your food right if you didn’t order like a Long Island Shore girl.”
“Oh my gawd.”
“You think they spit in our food?”
“No, I think my cable guy has seen me naked – I know they spit in our food.”
“I was too busy making up a song in my head about how mac and cheese are best friends.”
Max tends to get the most Seinfeldian plots.
“I don’t understand why a brother can’t look nice when he goes to bed.”
“What?! How could you get tired of telling people you’re a super Dave Osbourne fan?!”
This show’s ability to generate absurd guest characters is definitely its biggest strength so far. Or possibly I’m just delighted because I’ve never seen a show so good at that, to the point that it never occurred to me that you could be good at it. Part of it is that it simply throws them at us without warning, so it feels like we’re getting a tiny slice of a very weird life, which makes it feel even more absurd.
“I didn’t get my pie, Penny almost died!”
“I feel like you should have flipped those two.”
“Once you get a tattoo removed, you cannot put it back on.”
“Really? Coz I feel I could just–”
“Shh-shh.”
“Okay, one: love that you used my name as a verb. Big part of becoming a cultural icon, which you know is a goal of mine. Two: you shut your whore mouth!”
“Jane, it’s Chicago – everyone works for the Bears.”
“Why did he get fired?”
“Uh… he touched my butt?”
“I don’t know what you’re worse at: guitar or sex!”
Oh wow, good to know I can answer one question about myself in this life.
“Bro, you do not want to go on a bro-off with me, bro!”
“You go together?! You and no one?!”
“This song got super-strange fast… drum solo!”
“Last thing I remember is doing bodyshots off you.”
“That wasn’t me, that was the bartender.”
“He was a very nice man.”
“Sounds like someone’s going solo!”
I know this is a stupid thing, and normally I’m not like this, but the guy refusing to write anything down and refusing to learn (probably because he didn’t write it down) started to infuriate me by the end.
Live Music
Blackwater Holy Light was the name of the band – a four-piece all-female alternative rock band from Los Angeles, here for the Dark Mofo festival and very much in tune with it. Lots of heavy chugging, though there was both a wider variety in tones and styles than I expected – my favourite song had something like a ticking clock riff from the guitar that got increasingly intense.
We also went out to the Ogoh-Ogoh Procession that ends in the burning. This fortnight is Dark Mofo, a local arts festival that basically takes over the CBD of Hobart and is meant to feel like a modern-day pagan ritual – lots of big red crosses everywhere, some of them upside down. The Procession specifically was a parade with a few big statues, ending this year with a big lizard; there was also a cool-assed metal band playing, carried along like a full-band version of the Doof Warrior from Fury Road.
At the end was a big pile of wood and another, larger metal band playing a modern variation of a pagan song (led by a conductor, which I’ve never seen for a metal band). It quickly became clear that this was to make the process of chucking the big lizard on the blocks more interesting; it was clearly very laborious and safety intensive, and hearing a small choir reach higher and higher climax managed to overcome the banality of safety vests on dudes in cherrypickers. But yes, it was unbelievably sick when they set the fucker on fire.
I would go to that festival just for the opportunity to write “We also went out to the Ogoh-Ogoh Procession that ends in the burning.” Sounds awesome, some good bands in the lineup. And yes, fire is extremely rad.
Poirot, “Appointment with Death” – I had seen this years ago, and then saw the Peter Ustinov version, and somehow never really connected these adaptations of the same work in the least. The plot is essentially the same – a rather apprehensive woman is murdered at an archaeological site in the Levant, and she is killed not because she’s terrible now but was terrible in the past – but the Ustinov version is pretty funny and kind of fun and this makes a few big changes to the story, adds a second unnecessary subplot, and even turns the dig from “exploring a real site with real value” (Petra in the book, Qumran in the movie) to “somewhat obsessed search for John the Baptist’s head.” This is as well done as most episodes of the series, but it leaves what to be desired. Thankfully, the cast is very good (beyond the alwaye excellent Poirot), and includes Tim Curry, Elizabeth McGovern, Paul Freeman, Mark Gatiss, and the ubiquitous John Hannah.
Elementary, “A Regular Irregular” – The math whiz who helped Sherlock in season two discovers a murder victim while on the math whiz version of a treasure hunt. The mystery is not very interesting, but this is less about that and more about how the poorly socialized math whiz not only likes being a consultant to Sherlock but also has taken to trying to do some good as well. Meanwhile, Joan (and thus the viewer) learns that Kitty is a rape survivor, and Joan works with Sherlock to convince Kitty to seek counseling. The same humanism that has been applied to addiction is applied to surviving rape, with Kitty joining a support group, too.
Frasier, “Miss Right Now” – Head over heels for Charlotte but with no hope she would dump her boyfriend (Aaron Eckhart), Frasier goes with Roz to a pick up bar, and hits it off with Jennifer Tilly, playing the standard airheaded but sexy Jennifer Tilly character. But when he gets her home, fate conspires against them, mainly in the form of Charlotte showing up out of the blue. She’s still with her boyfriend, but Frasier seems determined to try anyway. Also, Martin has to meet up with Ronee’s mother (Marian Seldes), who didn’t like him when Ronee was babysitting Frasier and Niles, and who treats her adult daughter like a kid. Everything here works despite being a host of cliches, mainly due to how game the cast is. And maybe also because this is a Levine and Isaacs script, and they always do good work. Oh, and if “Frasier dates Jennifer Tilly” sounds familiar…the same plot played on Cheers.
This is, BTW, a good moment to note the passing of James Burrows, who directed several episodes of Frasier in its first four seasons, and who co-created Cheers with Levine and Isaacs among others. Burrows directed over 1,ooo episodes of various TV shows over a fifty year period, and probably left more of a mark on the sitcom than anyone else. RIP
MASH, “Hawk’s Nightmare” – Hawkeye starts sleepwalking, acting like he’s a kid in Crabapple Cove again, and then has nightmares about childhood friends. Dr. Freedman comes to visit, and determines that this is just Hawkeye’s way of coping, and that Hawkeye is perfectly sane. Though you can see this as yet another part of the puzzle that leads to Hawkeye’s fate in the finale. It’s all a bit pat, since the nightmares stop (at least until the memorable episode where we see everyone’s nightmares), but it’s pretty well done, and Klinger’s reaction to seeing an awake Hawkeye and Freedman playing basketball without a ball is priceless.
MLB, White Sox vs Tigers – The game was quite good, with the Tigers tying it with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and going again in the tenth. The broadcast was not, with the broadcasters spending half an inning talking more about the food someone brought them than the game.
RIP – Burrows seems to have been really beloved too.
Disclosure Day – Better the less it attempts to explain itself but of course Spielberg/Keopp are only going to leave the audience twisting so much for so long. The result is a series of interesting scenes* that add up to an unsatisfying whole — it’s never really answered why these special people are central to the plan to reach the entire world through… a local news broadcast? Still, intermittent Spielberg magic is something I’ll show up for every time.
* One scene that should work but absolutely does not is a young child’s journey with woodland creatures (glimpsed in the preview). I guess unconvincing digital creatures are a lateral move from less-than-focused real animals, but I see absolutely no reason the young girl’s face is digitally tweaked as though we wouldn’t notice the plastic eyes. Potential Spielberg magic wrecked by fussiness.
(I do enjoy the fantasy of a New York affiliate picking up the phone for Kansas City.)
That animal shit looks parodically bad in the previews. Bring back Bruce!
Live music — as always, ‘go to the show’ remains undefeated, I was feeling tired and shitty and dragged myself out and had a great fucking time. Black Helicopter killing it as per usual, new stuff sounding great and old shit really ripping, they’ve been opening sets with “Invasion Of Prussia” for a while now and the ending breakdown gets more and more savage, fuck yes. Great rest of the bill too, opener Miskatonic was reuniting for a one-off, they were a late-aughts band with very good Paramore vibes and this should’ve been a bigger hit (the recording is a half-step too slow and doesn’t quite have the juice of it live), if Olivia Rodrigo is lurking here (as we all assume she is) this would make a fine cover: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=NCYn0oTRY5I&list=OLAK5uy_nIl5v0-jO0CEL4KptylE5qacyE7tVw6Zc . And Sidewalk Driver was glammy goodness, their vocalist is “what if Frank Black wanted to be David Bowie” and he rules, the charisma and chops that this kind of band needs to really land. Lots of fun with some swerves into Franz Ferdinand territory. Hadn’t heard them before and apparently they have a new album dropping later this year, I’ll be there.
Woo, live music! Sidewalk Driver have a record out yet or no? That sounds like my shit.
Two albums out over the past 15 years or so — https://sidewalkdriver.bandcamp.com/. I think you would dig this track: https://sidewalkdriver.bandcamp.com/track/karaoke-guy-monday-night
Tales From The Crypt, “Lower Berth” – Directed by the Cryptkeeper puppeteer/sequence director Kevin Yagher, this feels truncated to a fault, like maybe it’d hit harder with longer than 30 minutes for the full story. One issue I’ve noticed with the show is that sometimes, especially with supernatural tales, any explanation gets rushed so I end up Cinemasins-ing the reasoning rather than grooving along with it. (Why does the mummy girl awaken? Is the freak doing all the castration or is it her powers? Etc.) Some amazing prosthetic and puppet work though which tracks for Yagher. The show simply never looks bad which is a high compliment.
Rewatched some Reggie Dinkins which is extremely fun and I love the little jokes and routines peppered throughout ala other Fey/Carlock shows. “We don’t have time for your Blackatha Christie routine!” “First of all, great idea for a movie.” (Erika Alexander reluctantly nods as if to say “Oh wow, you’re right.”) It’s a surprisingly sweet show given that it’s about a wealthy football player with a relatively modest goal; part of this is that Reggie isn’t EXACTLY Tracy Jordan. He’s not insane and is capable of giving good, insightful advice and accepting it from others. (To paraphrase 30 Rock, he would pass Jack’s test of humility.)
Dark Of The Sun – The spectres of King Leopold and Joseph Conrad hang over this men’s adventure in the Congo. Mercenaries (Rod Taylor and Jim Brown) motivated by profit work for a government with close ties to European mining interests. Sent to rescue whites trapped in a remote outpost, the real purpose of their mission becomes all too clear – millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds to finance more slaughter. Leopold is gone but his cruelness remains. If Heart of Darkness is about fear of savagery outside us, Dark of the Sun explores the fear of descending into the savagery within us. It is dark with its topics of “primitive” beliefs, the Simbas, Nazism, and the savagery of revenge. Jack Cardiff makes a great looking picture and fills it with visceral horror. The well known chainsaw fight is short but well done. The train car full of rescued civilians rolling backwards into an army of Simbas is terrifying. The infiltration of the village full of Simbas has good action. Taylor’s final fight with Nazi Peter Carsten completes his descent to madness and savagery. Carsten is dubbed by Paul Frees, so that was fun to listen to for ninety minutes. There is a great Not-Ennio Morricone score.
What did we play?
Ploughwoman’s birthday means a new game in the house. This year it’s Trek 12, a mountain-climbing themed roll and write. Pretty fun, combines a bit of luck with a fair amount of math and statistical thinking. Naturally she dominates at it.