“Backrooms”
If you’ve ever made a wrong turn in a shopping mall and found yourself in a space not intended for public view, you’ve had the eerie sensation captured by “Backrooms,” the new horror film from first-time director Kane Parsons. The seemingly innocuous setting is Cap’n Clark’s Ottoman Empire, a furniture showroom in an early ’90s suburban wasteland. The store is struggling, as is its proprietor (Chiwetel Ejiofor, “12 Years a Slave”), who spends his nights on a display bed after being kicked out by his wife. One night, Clark discovers a wall in the basement that serves as a portal to a vast network of empty rooms and corridors. It seems like unused office space, except there are oddly shaped rooms, furniture fused into walls, and a sense that someone, or something, is always watching. When Clark goes missing, his therapist, Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve, “Sentimental Value”), ventures into the Backrooms herself, discovering the truth behind her patient’s rantings.
The concept of “Backrooms” will be familiar to viewers under a certain age. The story began as a viral 4chan post and has since evolved into a sort of open-source urban legend, spawning fiction, video games, and a popular found footage YouTube series by Parsons himself. Here, Parsons expands on his videos, providing the vibes-based horror with story and depth. The main draw is still the uncanniness of the locale, rendered in sprawling physical sets which seem to go on forever, and the distorted creatures and artifacts which sporadically populate it. Pure visual surrealism of this caliber is rare in mainstream film, as are the long, wordless stretches we are afforded to appreciate it. Yet this is no mere mood piece. Parsons uses this liminal horror to explore the murkiness of memory and nostalgia. We all have our backrooms, the film suggests — and they’re mostly just as terrifying. Parsons’ “Backrooms” is one worth getting lost in. — Oscar Goff
Playing at Somerville Theatre, Kendall Square Cinema, and AMC Assembly Row
“Kontinental ‘25”
Irreverent Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude loves to poke the bear, and if he can, do so while coloring outside the lines with a gonzo, WTH crayon. Take “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn” (2021) where the repercussions of a school teacher’s sex tape take center stage, or his 2023 magnum opus (to date) “Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World” (2023), a finely honed, hysterically funny political skewering that took deft swings at Trump and Putin. It’s a film that should not be missed.
“Kontinental ’25” feels more restrained. It follows the travails of Orsolya (Eszter Tompa), a former academic who, because of the way post-Communist Romania has developed its “Promise of Freedom” (Jude frames this as a capitalist grab), has been knocked down to a bailiff’s post. She’s also discriminated against as an ethnic Hungarian living in the part of Transylvania ceded to Romania in the wake of World War II. Semantics, but important undercurrents.
Orsolya’s on a mission to evict a homeless man living in a ramshackle structure destined to be razed in favor of a luxury hotel, which ends in fatal and tragic fashion. This event becomes the trigger that sends Orsolya on a soul-searching journey that includes hanging out with a former student and Grubhub courier (Adonis Tanta), endless shots of tequila and bray-at-the-moon sex in a graveyard. It’s all to assuage her guilt and deal with the reality of the ever-gentrifying landscape.
The inspiration for the film comes from Roberto Rossellini’s neorealist drama “Europe 51” (1952), where a rich socialite played by Ingrid Bergman grapples with her complicity in another’s death. At times it feels that Jude tries too hard to follow Rossellini’s more dour tenor rather than let his freak-flag fly, and as a result “Kontinental” is uneven. Tompa’s performance keeps the film moored. Her character’s adrift and seeking port, which are universal and tenable. The political overtones Jude bakes in are clear and well-layered. — Tom Meek
Playing at the Brattle Theatre.
A stronger
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