BACKROOMS

If writer/director Kane Parsons wants to crack open a brewski to celebrate the huge opening of his debut feature film, BACKROOMS, he’ll have to wait a few weeks until his birthday on 18th June.  Coz he’s 20.  Ffs.

The film’s production budget (circa $10M) was recouped in Thursday night’s previews and box office sales are expected to exceed $80M over this blisteringly hot, hardly-cinema-going-weather weekend.  Kudos to you, Young Master Parsons, and to you, A24, for smashing your own already impressive records.

While BACKROOMS (why is it one word?  I find it very, very, very, surprisingly, all-consumingly irritating and I flinch when I read it, even moreso when I am forced to write it… and don’t get me started on what happens when I try to say it…. Anyone else having this visceral reaction?  Just me, eh?) may be Parsons’ first feature, he has been issuing “content” (urgghhh… another shudder-inducing word...) via his YouTube channel since he was knee-high to a grasshopper, including the found footage source material which evolved into the feature.

Found footage films hold a special place in our independent-film-loving hearts, and I have yet to see a finance plan fail to mention 1999’s THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT as a “comp”, tapping into investors’ greed by suggesting they’ll see $10k for every $1 of investment, a 1,000,000% ROI (if my maths is correct and as per figures published in the Guinness Book of World Records, so totes verified!) and about as likely to happen as me getting married again or paying my rent via Substack subscription fees (prove me wrong, people! On either front!).  Myriad other found footage films were made, most of ‘em unwatchable, until Mark Duplass tapped into the genre for his $500 effort (per Wikipedia… but can you really make a film for $500?  I’m not convinced), CREEP, raking in untold riches via a VOD platform and sale to Netflix.

The appeal of found footage films is clear (they’re cheap as chips, lend themselves to horror - a genre that does not rely on recognisable on-camera talent - and they give the audience a first person POV and experience) and Parsons leans into the history of the sub-genre by casting Mark “CREEP” Duplass himself in a supporting role, no doubt drawn in by powerhouse too-kool-for-skool studio A24, in the company of indie darlings Renate Reinsve and Chiwetel Ejiofor.  And, hey presto, we have a prime example of what really, really annoying studio-types define as “elevated genre” on our hands.

For the first hour or so of BACKROOMS, I believed myself to be watching a psychological thriller about our need to nest, to build and maintain homes in which to nurture relationships and raise families.  Clark (Ejiofor) is struggling through the breakdown of his marriage (“And she is living in my house,” he shouts. “Mine!  I am still paying for it…”), building an ad hoc bedroom within the bowels of his furniture store, while Mary (Reinsve), his therapist, is haunted by memories of her mother’s mental illness and their resultant homelessness.  And there was lots of nice evidence to support my nesting theory including the furniture conceit, Mary’s self-help audiobooks called “The Window Within”, and the repeated visual and audible references to seagulls.  And the concept of nesting felt very mature and interesting to me, tbh, and something I think about pretty regularly as I try to maintain my own nest despite my original co-nester and 50% of my chicks having already taken flight.  To my mind, the home is an abundantly rich concept (psychologically, economically, societally and aesthetically) and precisely the thing to “elevate” the genre of horror (from which I might normally steer clear… why would I want to be scared in the cinema when absolutely everything else in my life already scares the bejeezus out of me?).

And it was a great hour!  Really, really, really good.  And elevated.  And mature… (how’d a 20 year old do this?!).  And then some more ideas started to elbow their way into the frame, ideas which didn’t entirely advance my nesting theory.  A giant pirate, for example.  And two blurry-faced people who may or may not be alive and may or may not be homicidal.  And some weird cannibalism.  And lots of liminal spaces and a sense of the uncanny.  And loadsa dirty clothes.  Ah yes, I thought, a 20 year old has done this.

While Parsons is undoubtedly a technically accomplished filmmaker with an encyclopoedic knowledge of the medium, I worry he is more of a phenomenal mimic (the references to other films and filmmakers come in fast and furious…) than an original thinker.  There is such a thing as having too much too soon, and while I concede BACKROOMS is a very good film, I worry little Kane Parsons will be bored of the medium before he is mature enough to give us something truly original, truly brilliant and born of his own mind, which is a loss for us… for him… for film.  ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Still, the real purpose of going to see BACKROOMS last night was obvs to force a break from the principal activity of my week: watching and rewatching part 1 of the SUMMER HOUSE REUNION and associated clips and commentary, bewildered by the mind-boggling implosion of friendships and situationships that is SCAMANDA.  Not since Scandoval have I been so glued to the screen.  If you know, you know.  And if you don’t know, you’re a better woman than me.  And if you know or you don’t know, but you know you want to know, I’ll be writing about it at length, no doubt, after the next two reunion episodes. #teamciara