- Sensibility: The film gets away with a lot with the mysterious nature of the backrooms, but even then a phone call, Clark's survival, and a bleeding giant all are hard to explain.
- Cinematography: Production design is the highlight of this film. There's so much to look at in every scene, adding to the mystery and terror of each room. The framing, scene choreography, lighting, and set design all magnify the foreshadowing of the story and create unforgettable imagery. The only weakness is that the production design is so good that it makes the digitally generated portions of the backrooms stand out relative to the physical set pieces. These differences disrupt the suspension of disbelief.
- Energy: The film is relentless like the backrooms themselves. The film demands constant attention to detail, as there's so much to see in each scene and the story-telling is so tight that you can't miss a moment.
- Narrative: Brilliant concepts executed to near perfection. The backrooms are so foreign and yet so familiar. Great storytelling elements shown rather than told through dialogue. The interplay of Clark's psychological issues and therapy sessions with his behavior in the backrooms is brilliant. The therapist character is particularly strong: her horrifying background told almost entirely through dream sequences and imagery rather than direct dialogue.
- T-Points: The film received five bonus points: one for an opening found footage sequence, one for a sequence of horrifying camcorder footage where Clark is sprinting deeper into backrooms, one for a sequence of iterations of Mary's childhood home, one for a haunting scene where Mary is climbing a stariwell over a deep pit, and one for brilliant production design on the whole.
Great film with so much to offer conceptually and visually. In a film with a lot of great horror movies, this one stands out. The film does a great job of toe-ing the line of exploring without explaining the
mysteries of the backrooms.
Number of Watches: 2
