Backrooms (2026)

    The thing about horror is that it gets stale. I watched a lot of slasher films in my teen years, but they don't do much for me anymore. Scream reinvigorated the genre, and kicked off a bunch of self-referential horror films. But that's stale too. Heck, the newest Scream pretty much abandoned the concept and just made another straight slasher movie.
    In the early 2000s a lot of Japanese horror films started making their way over here. I loved The Grudge and The Ring, because they weren't the same story over and over. Until they were. I've grown indifferent to a lot of themes.
    A few years ago I started reading Creepypasta. There's some real gems in there. No End House and Candle Cove were a couple of my favorites. There were a few recycled ideas, but overall horror felt fresh again.
    To me, the key to modern horror is to be unsettling. Anybody can film jumpscares and graphic gore, but it takes a real artist to make your skin crawl just by making things feel... a little off. Stanley Kubrick managed it in The Shining. The shots of Danny riding around the Overlook on his Big Wheel, you always had the feeling that something was Not Right, but you didn't know what. Say what you will about The Shining - No, it's not a good adaptation of the book, but the movie really nails the unsettling vibe.
    The fear of Liminal Spaces feels like a modern invention, but it's always been there, it just has a name now. People have always been creeped out by large empty rooms and mazelike hallways. Places that look like they should be occupied, but aren't.
    For me, they trigger false memories. I think I might be remembering dreams I've had, but it's been so long I can't tell them from actual memories. I distinctly remember going to a convention with my wife, getting off on the wrong floor, and finding ourselves on an entire floor of empty hallways. But I don't think it ever actually happened. The most lasting part of the memory is the feeling that You Should Not Be Here.
    A few year ago I wrote a short story about an office worker who returns to the office after hours, only to find it occupied by strange people who only appear in rooms that are supposed to be empty. The whole story is built around the "You Shouldn't Be Here" trope, and it's one of the creepier things I've written, IMO. If you're interested, the story is called "Third Shift" and it's in the collection "Rainbow Nightmares." All my books will be on sale for the month of June, on itch.io. Shameless plug over.
    Anyway, concepts like Liminal Spaces and Analog Horror either resonate with you or they don't. If you don't find the Backrooms trailer at least a little unsettling, you're not going to like the movie. The movie does a decent job of making you feel on edge, but only if you let yourself get into it. "Fear of the Unknown" does a lot of heavy lifting, so if you decide to see it, do as little research as possible. That's why I'm not going into a lot of detail in this blog.
    (Mild Spoilers) The movie is weird, like Vivarium weird. And like Vivarium, Backrooms doesn't really stick the landing at the end. But that's the problem with weird horror. The stranger you make the movie, the harder it is to write a satisfying payoff.
    Anyway, it's a pretty good time if you like weird. But no matter how much you let yourself get into it, you will find parts of it to be disappointing.