The Film Doctor's One Sentence Review of Backrooms
I enjoyed Backrooms ' increasingly strange yet banal tableaus and its blunt messages: never work in a cheap furniture store (though Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renata Reinsve both enlivened the film with their excellent acting), but the movie loses some of its plausibility in its latter half ( Obsession has more narrative coherence); and, really, one should never follow one's boss through a portal, walk through a spooky warren of rooms and hallways (like the liminal spaces of Exit 8 ), and then agree to have a rope tied to your belt and lowered into a lengthy chute as the lighting darkens; to all that, just say no, since after all, everyday life is tacky enough in our usual labyrinth without getting devoured by some minotaur amidst the excess inventory of Lazy Boys, TV stands, sectional sofas, and dinette sets.
