Here’s a thriller that Maurice Escher could have production designed, with Salvador Dalí decorating the sets and Stanley Kubrick behind the camera directing.

Not that Youtube phenom turned horror filmmaker Kane Parsons is the new Kubrick. But in turning his “Backrooms” found footage horror video series into a feature film, he and his production designer Danny Vermette (“Longlegs”) and art director Alan Derksen summon up not just cinematic horror imagery of the past, but of the most disturbing painters in the canon.

A visual essay in the sinister possibilities of a minimalist unknown becomes something deeper with nightmarish echoes of Heironymous Bosch and Dalí pasted on a yellow on yellow settings that could have been inspired by Mondrian.

This summer’s “Blair Witch Project” horror phenomenon is about a stressed, divorced furniture store owner who stumbles into an alternate reality by stepping through the walls of the basement of his bland ’90s surburban warehouse store.

Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor, bringing the “real”) never seems to have any customers, which only adds to the bitter edge his drinking has taken on.

“Cap’n Clark’s Ottoman Empire” is a badly-named “cheap particle board” furniture warehouse store which Clark tries to advertise with DIY commercials of himself dressed as a furniture pirate. The whole “pirate” or “sultan” branding doesn’t work and even his young dead-end employees (Lukita Maxwell and Finn Bennett) get that they don’t “get it.”

It’s only with his therapist (Renate Reinsve of “Sentimental Value” and “The Worst Person in the World”) that Clark gets into the reasons for his anger. He lost his house in a divorce to his perpetual law-student wife.

“I hurt people,” he confesses. “It’s just the way I”m wired.”

Role-playing the “big fight” that ended his marriage doesn’t help, and we wonder if published author Dr. Mary has a clue about how to get Clark “forging a new path” to better mental health.

The dude’s sleeping in his furniture store, after all. He’s got almost nowhere to go but up. But will he?

Something about this yellow wallppaper and yellowish carpet milieu of vast rooms, empty sections, cubicles with no one in them, wonky wiring and PA and CCTV systems gives him and us as viewers the creeps.

Poking around in the basement has him poking a wall because he hears something, and then freaking out when his arm and indeed his entire body go right through it.

Horror films that cast really good actors are the ones that manage the proper level of “This can’t be happening” shock and awe at what transpires. Clark absorbs the shock. Then he “explores” this beyond-the-basement-wall realm — mysterious piles of what looks like furniture, but “make no sense” as chairs or desks or what have you.

Half-buried manikin parts protrude, Dalí style, out of the floor. An advertising standee with a pirate on it chirps away greetings in a parade of languages. Walls recede into some pointed forced perspective and shafts and tunnels present themselves to Clark, who knows there’s someone or something in there with him. It’s just that he can’t help but come back.

Trying to explain to his therapist this “New York Subway System…massive” maze of rooms and corridors gets him nowhere. And rounding up his two employees to join him for this “expedition” to video what they find seems a mistake. It always is.

“Backrooms” is primarily a triumph of horrific tone, with a handful of grim and gruesome shocks to sate viewers who like their horror violent and bloody.

The look and the psychological mystery at the heart of it feed into the chill that sets in early and rarely leaves your mind. Horror conventions such as a character being snatched out of the frame and “Slenderman” like figures — and a dwarf — are tucked into this “Everything Everywhere All at Once” universe of an underworld.

The finale is entirely too conventional and pat to fit the general weirdness of all that’s preceded it. And as we ponder the puzzle what connects these people to that place — literal or mental — we have to consider what indie cinema icon Mark Duplass might be playing and what Reinsve is getting at as we see and hear her struggle to emote or even hit the right word emphasis in sentences in English.

But Ejiofor is the casting coup here, an actor who buys in and makes us join him as he utters even the most exhausted lines in horror — “Look, I know this sounds crazy.” Because it is. Until it starts to make sense, almost in spite of all the over-explaining that dominates the closing scenes.

Rating: R, violence, profanity

Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve and Mark Duplass.

Credits: Directed by Kane Parsons, scripted by Will Soodik, based on the Kane Parsons video series. An A24 release.

Running time: 1:50

• PRESSURE
• Starring:  Brendan Fraser, Andrew Scott and Kerry Condon
• Directed by:  Anthony Maras
• Rated:  R
• Running time:  1 hr 40 mins
• Focus Features

Our score:  3.5 out of 5

On the most recent episode of our “Back in the Day” podcast the crew and I took a look at some of the greatest war movies ever made.  In doing my research I learned that there have been more then 5,000 feature films dealing with World War II alone.  5,000!!  Some of them are regarded as some of the best films ever made (The Best Years of Our Lives, Patton, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan) while others I’d never seen.  As Memorial Day rolls along this year we are treated to another one:  Pressure.

The film opens on the aftermath of what can only be called a horrible tragedy.  Overlooking the carnage, General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Fraser) can only curse.

Jump ahead six months where we meet British meteorologist James Stagg (Scott).  Awaiting the birth of his child, he is summoned to meet with Eisenhower and his staff to forecast the weather conditions that will be taking place during an operation they are calling “D-Day.”  Stagg continually butts heads with Colonel Krick (Chris Messina), whose method of predicting future weather from past events is not a practice Stagg embraces.  The two continually clash, much to the chagrin of an increasingly agitated Eisenhower.  Doing her best to keep the peace is Lieutenant Kay Summersby (Condon), Eisenhower’s aide and buffer.  It’s not an easy job.

Well presented with an outstanding attention to detail, Pressure could be looked at as the prequel to Saving Private Ryan, which opens with the invasion of Normandy, while this film looks at the events leading up to that day.  The cast is strong, with Fraser at his best when going head to head with British General Bernard Montgomery (Damian Lewis), whose “gung – ho” attitude robs Ike the wrong way.  It doesn’t help that “Monty” keeps referencing that, unlike others, he has battlefield experience.  He also throws “Exercise Tiger,” easily Eisenhower’s worse military chapter, out when it suits him.  (NOTE:  For those unaware, Exercise Tiger was basically a practice run for D-Day, with young soldiers taking place in a military exercise.  However, due to poor communications, live ammunition was used and nearly 1,000 soldiers and seamen were killed.)

The film has it’s dramatic moments but it’s also anti-climactic because, while they continually stress that the invasion will take place on June 5^th, anyone with any knowledge of history knows D-Day was June 6^th.  So when Ike asks if everything is good for June 5^th, you want to shake your head and tell him “no, sir.”

That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the film.  I did.  When I was born, Eisenhower was president – JFK would be elected two months later.  And it was a genuine treat to be sitting in the theatre with some of Eisenhower’s great grandchildren.  It lent a nice historical aspect to the screening.

On a scale of zero fo five, Pressure receives ★★★  ½

The idea of a young, aspiring filmmaker running around their backyard with a low-quality camera and a gaggle of friends roped into performing in their latest project is nothing new. In fact, it has been a staple of popular culture for decades. That is what makes Kane Parsons’ debut online short, The Backrooms (Found Footage), especially notable. When it was released in 2022, it felt uniquely connected to that long-standing piece of American cinematic mythology.

The short opens with a group of kids on set, preparing to shoot another take for what is clearly a makeshift, shoestring-budget horror project. Then, the camera operator unexpectedly slips into another reality of sorts: a liminal space hidden beneath the ground where the crew was filming. As the story transitions from the real world into the “backrooms,” Parsons’ approach also evolves, moving beyond traditional filmmaking into something digitally generated rather than physically captured by a camera.

In hindsight, it plays as an incredibly loaded opening statement from the young filmmaker. The king is dead, long live the king. The era of kids running around their backyards trying to imitate the aesthetics of professional filmmaking has given way to a new generation embracing the possibilities and limitations of entirely different tools, such as Blender. Now, Parsons has partnered with A24 to bring that vision of horror’s future to the big screen with his debut feature film, Backrooms.

The result, while occasionally uneven, feels like something genuinely significant. It is a film that suggests the beginning of a new chapter for the horror genre, one shaped by creators who grew up with digital tools, internet culture, and a completely different understanding of what filmmaking can be.

TOP FIVE THINGS ABOUT “BACKROOMS”

5. Assured Direction

Kane Parsons is a young man, but he’s someone who has been telling stories within this exact narrative and tonal space for years now. That level of clarity and concentration is demonstrated in his debut film in spades. Working with cinematographer Jeremy Cox and editor Greg Ng (both of whom worked on Osgood Perkins’ films Longlegs and The Monkey), Parsons creates a visual language that often feels immersive and claustrophobic in equal measure.

The use of wide-angle lenses throughout is a great choice that serves to both accentuate the off-kilter nature of this world and showcase even more of production designer Danny Vermette’s remarkable work. Altogether, it does not feel like a film made by a novice, but rather one made by someone who is confident and in control of their cinematic craft. That is a testament to Parsons’ talents as a director.

4. A Very Good Script

The script for Backrooms, written by Will Soodik and based on the stories originated by Parsons and his YouTube body of work, is articulate, thoughtful, and incredibly well-constructed. As audiences have seen time and again with earlier attempts like Slender Man and Five Nights at Freddy’s, it is not exactly easy to translate what makes a lo-fi analog horror concept work in the digital world to the big screen without losing what makes it special.

But Soodik’s writing manages to let Backrooms have its cake and eat it too, maintaining many of the aesthetic and tonal choices that made those short films work so well while also delivering a much more traditional and compelling character-driven drama that ties everything together. For the first act and a half of the film, I was genuinely shocked by how well it managed to maintain this precarious balance. However, it was not quite meant to last…

3. Strong First Half, Lackluster Back Half

If I have one real critique of Backrooms, it is that the stellar first hour-plus of the film is severely bogged down by its final stretch. Without spoiling things, there’s a moment in the film where the baton is passed from one perspective to another, and while this initially seems to hold a great deal of potential, it ultimately leaves things feeling underdeveloped and uneven during the final stretch.

It also falls into the trap of attempting to explain a bit too much about the otherworldly horrors of the Backrooms in a way that only serves to deflate the terror-inducing awe of the concept while also raising even more questions. There are also some character choices that feel jarring and underbaked, making the whole thing ring just a little hollow by the end.

2. That Mid-film Setpiece

Just before that aforementioned perspective switch, audiences are treated to what has to be considered the centerpiece of the entire film: an extended set piece shot entirely in a found-footage style as a trio of characters enters the Backrooms. Everything about this sequence works, from the way the film builds toward it to the performances and the eloquent, highly effective blocking. All of these elements come together to create what is easily the strongest section of the film.

This is Parsons truly operating in his element, and it absolutely shows. The film is worth seeing on the biggest screen possible for this tour-de-force sequence alone.

1.  Blending Formats

As the latest in a growing line of online content creators making the leap to the big screen with aplomb, Parsons’ Backrooms is unique in that it feels actively engaged in conversation with both present-day audiences and decades of horror influences. The film is modern in its conventions and the way it communicates with viewers, yet it is set in the ’90s and draws inspiration from projects such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Eraserhead, The Blair Witch Project, and even the more recent Skinamarink.

The result is a film that feels as though it is building upon both the foundations of the horror genre as a whole and the foundations of Parsons’ online work. Because of that, Backrooms is able to reach some genuinely impressive heights.

GRADE

(B-)

Kane Parsons’ Backrooms is an incredibly taut, suspenseful, and dread-inducing debut feature that promises great things from the young filmmaker for years to come. If the film had managed to maintain the remarkable balancing act it nearly perfects during its opening hour or so, it would have been a solid A in my book. As it stands, the final half-hour bogs things down and gums up the works a bit, but it is nowhere near enough to counteract all of the greatness the first half achieves.

Backrooms is occasionally great and consistently solid, more than deserving of every bit of the success and attention it is receiving.