Scattered, unorganized thoughts on Backrooms

(Spoilers for Backrooms ahead)

I mentioned in the post I made on Obsession that I wanted to jot down some thoughts I had about Backrooms so I might as well go do that. I feel like I can pretty easily say it's the best movie I've watched in years. Left me with a lot to think about as well, seeing as how I'm not that knowledgeable on the source material (I'm familiar with the concept of the Backrooms, but haven't watched the web series aside from the first short film). 

I feel like I need to address the elephant in the room here and just take a moment to glaze Kane Parsons' excellent direction. This is his debut film and yet despite this you can tell he has a gift for the silver screen. There are so many subtle details that go unnoticed on your first watch and reveal themselves later. Hell, I think "subtle" is probably the best word that could be used to describe this film. It's not a jumpscare-a-thon like most acclaimed horror movies, rather, it exploits the fear of the absurd. There shouldn't be anything inherently scary about Clark's first visit to the Backrooms, but there are so many factors (the non-Euclidean, misremembered parts of human space is the big one but there are others) that place you on edge the entire time. The horror comes from the ramifications.

Speaking of Clark, let's talk characters. Clark and Mary are some of the most well-written characters in any piece of fiction I've seen. The scene early on during therapy where Clark acts out an argument with his wife (and its dark reprisal later on) are masterfully executed; in particular I feel like both tell the viewer quite a bit about the two characters but not everything, which is something that the film exploits later on when 1) Clark drags the film crew with him to the Backrooms and 2) Mary snaps at Clark over dinner. There's a bit of dialogue in that first scene that I also feel is worth mentioning: when Clark escorts Bobby and Kat through the areas of the Backrooms he's familiar with (which also makes me wonder: for just HOW LONG and HOW MUCH has he been in there? Enough to create a map, it would seem), he offhandedly mentions there's a pool room. A friend pointed out that he thought this clued you in on Clark's intentions: if he knew there was a pool room, then he also must have known that there was something lurking within that general area. He was, consciously or unconsciously, leading two innocent people to their death, all in the name of evidence.

Here's a thought that keeps bugging me, and maybe I'm on the right track and maybe I'm not: while trying to explain the Backrooms I came up with the theory that it was some sort of cognitohazard (if you will pardon the SCP Foundation-speak), or something that actively destroyed you mentally while trying to understand it. We see this, most prominently, with Clark, who, by the end, is under the belief that he can tame Pirate Clark. If you squint, you can also make this connection with A-Sync as a corporation (with their presumable loss of ethics and morals in the pursuit of understanding the Backrooms) and, to an extent, Mary (with her being shell-shocked by her attempt to rescue Clark). Again, maybe I'm on the right track or maybe I'm completely wrong, but I felt it was interesting to share.

Is Kane Parsons God? Yeah, probably.