Backrooms - This was a solid watch. I've never specifically watched a lot that was directly Backrooms related, particularly the original stuff that kicked this all off with Kane Parsons videos, but I've casually seen stuff adjacent or wanting to be it for years in usually clip form more than anything in long form. I can be someone that likes movies where there's a person trapped in somewhere strange, like The Cube, or strange anomaly type stuff you'd see with the tv show Fringe or the game Control. Often I don't love not having an explanation for things, a movie ending weird like with Weapons, or it's very open ended "What do YOU think happened?", but I'm okay with that idea if it factors more into the scenario. What is this weird liminal space? No one knows, that's what makes it terrifying and unsettling.
That's what makes the Backrooms work. It's unnerving how real it seems, but so wrong. Yeah there can be monsters or creatures, but you can do something almost without that and still have it be creepy. Wouldn't exactly make for the best "movie", but still. I love the idea that whatever this...dimension...new reality...this space is, it's something that is seeing the world and re-creating it, but not able to truly do so right. I'm not going to spoil anything, I sorta wish they had explored one of the characters abit longer before it went where it went, but it's not bad. I'm really looking forward to the sequel now.
It's got me wanting to go check out Kane Parsons videos now. He thankfully has the playlist properly organized so I can binge through everything.
*EDIT*
Adding onto this the Kane Parsons original videos and it's insane that a 17 year old made something with Blender as good as the original video and everything that followed lol Dump enough visual flicker and 90's video aesthetic onto something and you can make a full CGI world look like a real place. It's definitely a good thing he shows the creature in it so little, because at least in the first video, it almost seems real till you see that weird creature. Also smart keeping all the people in the hazmat suits for much of the videos as it minimizes the fact that it is CGI. They showed a person or two midway, but it's very not clear with them and then they introduce some live action bits here and there, but I think he understands a lot of what he can get away with trying to keep the things looking fairly real.
Highly recommend finding the Kane Parsons Backrooms playlist and just going through it all, it's so insane that this guy was given 10 million bucks to make something that is functionally a continuation of his Youtube series. You can watch it there and then watch the movie and get a different viewpoint, as a lot of his videos after the first one involve mostly people in hazmat suits and the company, or if you are like me, you go from watching the movie, to watching his videos and it all seems like background canon lore to that movie to expand it further. It's kinda crazy to have this and it's all really engaging and well done I think.
*EDIT 2* Fully finished all of Kane Parsons stuff, it's really good. Something I appreciate that I feel like a lot of the copy cat stuff that came afterwards did, they try to push a lot more of the extremes of the liminal space, huge water sources, a lot more monster stuff, but Parson does it all in a more grounded way I feel, like there are moments where he tips into the extreme, showing huge pits or massive, copied, areas, but he keeps everything relatively contained. The big long "Found Footage" things often are just unsettling traversal things that can have a creature in it, which does get more interesting later on and his videos often come back to stuff setup in previous videos in cool ways. I like that he's hinting at potential stuff with the creatures, but never gives us the strongest look at them.
It's often why I prefer suspenseful horror-type things that are built more on tension and atmosphere than jumpscares if possible.
