Back in the 1980s and 1990s, Hollywood recruited any successful music video director they could find to shoot features. Some worked out – hello, David Fincher! – but a lot didn’t.

In 2026, creators of YouTube shorts appear to exist as the New Hollywood Fascination – or they will become that soon. Made by YouTube talents, this year’s Obsession and Backrooms both turned into major hits, so we can expect movie studios to mine that website for plenty more filmmakers.

As the link above indicates, I already covered Obsession. That means we can now look at its “sibling hit”, Backrooms.

Set in Northern California, Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) runs a failing furniture store. He also struggles with anger toward his ex-wife Barbara (Kelly Craig), a fact that sends him to sessions with therapist Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve).

When Clark investigates stubborn electrical glitches in his facility, he stumbles into an entire alternate location that seems to extend forever. As Clark tries to explore these domains, he becomes obsessed in a manner that threatens his already tenuous mental state.

For the reasons I implied at the start, Obsession and Backrooms seem destined to remain joined at the hip in the public perception forever. In addition to their YouTube roots, both hit multiplexes at almost the same time, both offered horror tales, and both made massive profits based on their small budgets.

That said, the films themselves lack many similarities. While Obsession gives us a fairly traditional “be careful what you wish for” tale, Backrooms provides something much more in the “mind trip” category.

This means Backrooms requires some patience. Though it opens with a teaser of the insanity that will arrive later in the film, our experiences with Clark don’t get kooky until a good chunk of cinematic time passes.

Even when Clark experiences the titular bizarre locations, the story continues to require space to evolve. Backrooms keeps the viewer just as off-guard and unsure of what’s happening as it does Clark.

This works to some degree, and I like the slow boil – in theory. However, Backrooms tends to feel too sluggish too much of the time, and this means it can come across more like a concept than a well-realized story.

An awful lot of Backrooms consists of Clark or others as they wander the mysterious locations. While this manages to create some tension, it also comes across as redundant and like a delay tactic.

Honestly, Backrooms often feels more like a concept for a film than a fully-considered narrative. The tale goes down intriguing paths but it doesn’t explore them in a terribly satisfying manner and it seems unsure where to go with them.

This means that after so much spooky “mind trip” material in the weird alternate universe of the “backrooms”, director Kane Parsons goes for standard horror in the third act. I get the impression those involved couldn’t figure out a conclusion more in line with the rest of the project so they just decided to send a monster to chase and threaten people.

Which does add some much needed action to the story. However, it just feels wrong for such a willfully perverse and slow-moving narrative to suddenly embrace stock clichés.

I do think Backrooms represents a promising feature debut for Parsons. Amazingly, the director didn’t turn 21 until a short period after the movie’s release, so he clearly displays filmmaking maturity beyond his years.

And I won’t blame the film’s issues on Parsons’ youth. The areas I disliked didn’t seem like a reflection of age or even necessarily inexperience, as plenty of older/more veteran directors may’ve gone down the same paths.

Whatever the case, I find a lot to respect about Backrooms, as I like many aspects of the movie. I just think the end product meanders too much and doesn’t click as well as it could.

Backrooms appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this 4K UHD Disc. Thanks to a lot of intentionally ugly footage, this didn’t become a dazzling Dolby Vision image, but it replicated the challenging source.

Actually, most of the flick went with native 4K footage and looked fine. The exceptions came from a smattering of 1.33:1 shots meant to look like VHS.

Inevitably those looked ugly. However, I expected that so I didn’t factor them into my overall grade.

As for the rest of the film, it offered largely solid vosuals, though perhaps not as dynamic as one would expect from a native 4K project. This meant a little softness at times, but not much. The majority of the flick seemed well-defined.

The movie lacked shimmering or jaggies, and edge haloes remained absent. Source flaws also failed to manifest.

In terms of palette, Backrooms usually mixed ugly yellows with more natural tones. These looked appropriate and HDR added some zing to the hues.

Low-light elements offered appealing clarity while blacks became deep. HDR allowed whites and contrast extra power. While not a visual showcase, the presentation held up fine.

Downconverted to Dolby TrueHD 7.1, the movie came with a spooky and atmospheric Dolby Atmos soundtrack. However, it provided music from all the channels and let the effects fill the spectrum.

A few violent scenes used the soundscape to the most impactful degree. These moments created a satisfying sense of place and setting.

Audio quality worked well. Speech was concise and natural, while music boasted fine range and vivacity.

Effects gave us accurate, dynamic elements without distortion. Though not a tremendously ambitious track, the movie’s mix seemed pretty solid.

As we move to extras, we open with an audio commentary from director Kane Parsons, VFX supervisor Edward J. Douglas, sound designer Eugenio Battaglia and composer Edo Van Breeman. All four sit together to discuss the source YouTube series and its adaptation, photography and effects, cast and performances, music and sound, story and characters, and connected domains.

Given the roster of participants, one might assume the track leans heavily toward technical domains. One might assume correctly.

Oh, we get occasional notes about story/character/performance areas, but they remain in the minority. While I’d like more about those areas – especially topics related to the web shorts – this still turns into a fairly informative track.

Quirky footnote: Van Breeman leaves the session early to deal with an emergency on a shrimp farm. Yeah, really – unless this is just an inside joke among the guys. If true, this marks the first time in my nearly 28 years of disc-reviewing I heard a commentary impacted by a shrimp-farm related concern.

Backrooms got a theatrical reissue with added footage titled ”Everything Must Go”. While the disc doesn’t present that specific version of the film, it does give us the 16 minutes, seven seconds of extra material found via tha release.

All of this appeared after the original movie’s end credits and expands on our understanding of “Async Research Institute”, the group witnessed in the VHS elements seen at the flick’s start. The scenes feel mildly intriguing but probably fare best for diehard fans, as the bonus material seems dry with a smidgen of terror at the end.

A featurette called Building the Backrooms spans 25 minutes, 50 seconds. We find remarks from Parsons, producer Chris Ferguson, production designer Danny Vermette, cinematography Jeremy Cox, costume designer Mica Kayde, and actors Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Finn Bennett, Robert Bobroczyki, Lukita Maxwell and Mark Duplass.

We get info about the roots of the YouTube series and its development into a film, story/characters, cast and performances, sets and design choices, photography, and costumes. The program avoids too much repetition from the commentary and gives us a strong look at the various topics.

Along with a VFX & Scene Breakdown (15:58), we get two other VFX Breakdowns for “Opening Scene” (5:24) and “Den Descent” (2:06).

“Scene” comes as a reel in which Parsons goes through various sequences and discusses effects. The other two “Breakdowns” offer optional commentary from Ed Douglas and associate visual effects supervisor Calvin Romeyn as they provide similar information. All these components give us useful details.

A Prop Tour (1:45) allows Parsons to show us some of the movie’s physical pieces up close. He makes this a short but decent view.

At least one Easter Egg appears here. If you click “Subtitles” from the main menu, one option shows an image of a boat wheel.

Click on this and you get to see a 32-second ad for Cap’n Clark’s Ottoman Empire. I hoped this would add a pirate-based subtitle track but this turns into a fun extra anyway.

Like apparently all A24 releases, this one comes with six Photo Cards that display shots from the film and other elements. They add a little value to the set.

As the debut from director Kane Parsons, Backrooms displays promise. However, the film tends to feel too thin and it lacks the bite it needs to really succeed. The 4K UHD comes with positive picture and audio along with a mix of supplements. While Backrooms doesn’t fully succeed, it does make me curious to see where Parsons goes from here.