Spoiler Alert
The Hook: A Furniture Salesman’s Descent
Backrooms opens with a stark portrait of Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a low‑budget furniture store owner still reeling from a bitter divorce. After a therapeutic session with Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve), Clark’s unresolved resentment boils over—he blames his estranged wife for forcing him into a monotonous career that occasionally lands him in cheesy pirate‑themed commercials. When Clark “noclips” through the wall of the store’s basement, he stumbles into the infamous endless office labyrinth known as the Backrooms, a place that feels both familiar and eerily wrong.
The Backrooms: A Never‑Ending Office Nightmare
The film recreates the Backrooms exactly as internet folklore imagined: flickering fluorescent tubes, beige carpets that virtually radiate a stale smell, and corridors cluttered with bizarre, sometimes floor‑embedded objects—tacky trophies, obsolete filing cabinets, and other remnants of consumerist culture. This infinite maze becomes more than a setting; it functions as a physical manifestation of a mind trapped in stagnation. Every fluorescent buzz echoes the protagonist’s internal monotony, while random artifacts represent memories and suppressed emotions that the outside world has discarded.
The Monster: A Mirror of the Self
Clark’s first encounter with a lethal creature forces him to flee, yet the pull of the Backrooms is irresistible. He invites his two employees, Bobby (Finn Bennett) and Kat (Lukita Maxwell), to document the strange realm. The creature, later revealed as a grotesque version of Clark’s pirate persona, embodies his own denied self—his stagnation, unmet potential, and resentment. When Clark finally returns, he forces Dr. Mary to replay their earlier conversation, demanding validation for his destructive choices. The monster devours him in a chilling moment of self‑consumption, illustrating how denial and escapism spiral into self‑destruction.
The Climax: Escape, Confrontation, and the Final Twist
After the beast kills Clark, Dr. Mary flees through increasingly distorted, dream‑like corridors. She ultimately reaches a room filled with gas canisters, rigged to activate when a cardboard cutout topples. Using a childhood memento to fend off the creature, she escapes—only to be taken by hazmat‑clad men to a secret laboratory. There, a researcher named Phil (Mark Duplass) from the mysterious corporation Async (formerly an MRI‑machine company) interrogates her. Phil hints that the Backrooms are a world‑changing discovery, a reality shaped by the brainwaves of those who enter.
What the Ending Means for the Story
The final shots show the Backrooms now infused with Mary’s memories, and a chilling revelation: Mary herself has been duplicated as one of the distorted inhabitants—an echo of the “worst self” that Clark once admired. Rather than being rescued, she is doomed to become part of Async’s experiments, forced to confront her own trauma repeatedly. The ending reframes the horror as a meta‑commentary on how the labyrinth absorbs and reflects our deepest anxieties, turning each visitor into a fragment of its ever‑shifting landscape.
Will There Be More? Sequel Prospects
Although A24 has not officially confirmed a continuation, the film plants seeds for a larger narrative. Director Kane Parsons has suggested that Backrooms could be the first of a multi‑film series, noting that a single movie cannot fully explore the concept’s “true heart.” A series, he told Polygon, would allow a deeper dive into the labyrinth’s origin, the nature of Async, and the psychological implications of the Backrooms.
Backrooms releases in theatres in India on June 12, 2026.
