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May has been a big month for horror fans. After the huge success of Focus Features and Blumhouse’s mania,A24 Back rooms It’s scheduled to hit theaters on Friday — and the reviews are in now.
The two films also share a common thread: both are directed by rising young voices in the genre, led by 26-year-old Cary Parker. mania And directed by 20 year old Ken Parsons Back rooms. After online rumors questioned Parsons’ involvement in the film, star Mark Duplass was quick to defend the director. “When I was there, Kane was 100% in control,” Duplass wrote on X Tuesday. “More than many directors three times his age.”
The film stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Rainsef, Finn Bennett, and Luketa Maxwell, with a screenplay written by Will Sudek. Producers include horror leaders James Wan and Osgood Perkins.
Back rooms It follows therapist Dr. Mary Klein (Rensif), who enters an alternate dimension after her patient disappears within it. The film is based on Parsons’ viral YouTube series, which he released when he was a teenager.
As of Wednesday, Back rooms It holds a score of 87 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and is tracking with $45 million to $50 million in its opening weekend, marking A24’s biggest debut to date. Below, find out what critics are saying about the film.
Hollywood Reporter Angie Hahn wrote: “The oddity itself has its limits. The more time we spend exploring back rooms, the less terrifying and more random these oddities become. They seem designed not according to some internal logic of this universe or the psychology of these characters but simply as an attempt to keep us guessing; they only work until it becomes clear that there are no meaningful answers to come.”
Daily Beast Nick Schager wrote in his review, “Back rooms It is undoubtedly a horror film, but at its core it has less in common with horror films, torture porn, and haunted house chillers than films like David Lynch. Lost Highway. Descending into a whimsical underworld that is a distorted reflection and deconstruction of the modern world, 21-year-old Kane Parsons’s feature debut (May 29) is a waking nightmare that prioritizes atmosphere over jump scares, and suggestion over explanation. While it sometimes burdens itself with excessive psychological treatment, it casts a surreal spell unlike anything else in contemporary cinema.
YouTube critic Jeremy Ganz praised the film’s found footage elements and balance of comedy, saying, “This movie is really shockingly funny” at times, “There were moments where he was clearly laughing, and it worked. The audience was laughing.” Although he added that the film seemed too long. “The final act of this movie has been treated as an afterthought… It has its flaws, I can see Back rooms It worked best as a series of online shorts, but overall, I had a good time in tight spaces.
Associated Press Jake Coyle wrote that the film’s “backstory is more interesting” in his review: “as a fluorescent-lit horror take on a Michel Gondry film.” Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, back rooms It doesn’t quite work. While the film finds a potentially insightful path to the story, it can’t bridge the wall-to-wall carpeted physical maze with Clark’s mental state. A film with many doors ultimately cannot find the right one.
Empire Jimmy Graham wrote:Back rooms It is one of the most surreal and artistic horror films since David Lynch eraser. The web series may have had 200 million views since its debut in 2022, but this movie is definitely not for everyone. It favors obfuscation, half-glimpsed creatures, and a constant sense of unease over crowd-pleasing jumps, and is sure to spark endless debate and interpretation among those who aren’t bored by absurdities.
