| A24 | Release Date: May 29, 2026 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
|
Positive:
37
Mixed:
8
Negative:
0
|
Critic Reviews
The PlaylistJun 3, 2026
Backrooms could have easily been disposable internet-horror junk food—a feature-length extension of creepypasta aesthetics with nothing underneath. Instead, Parsons delivers something far more haunting: an affecting horror film about imprisonment, memory distortion, and the private hell of mistaking isolation for refuge.
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PolygonMay 27, 2026
Like so many of the most memorable, most surprising horror movies, Backrooms winds up feeling ripe for sequels and spin-offs. The only question is whether more movies in this vein could maintain the mysteries hanging over the Backrooms. Horror sequels tend to overexplain and overdevelop, answering questions that shouldn’t really be answered. Here’s hoping we never fully find out what the Backrooms are, or exactly why they make the hair on the back of our collective necks stand on end.
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May 27, 2026
Ejiofor cleverly manifests a character caught between psychic dislocation and male privilege; Reinsve’s wounds are deeper but palpable beneath her collected facade. Mark Duplass deepens the mystery as a cryptic scientist. The bigger stars, however, are Danny Vermette’s production design and Parsons’s exquisite direction.
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The Film VerdictMay 27, 2026
NMEMay 27, 2026
Backrooms vibes-based momentum won’t be to everyone’s taste. For some there’ll be too much explanation and for others, too little. But it’s an intriguing, memorable creation with the power to rattle, as Parsons lurks in the intersection between dread and delirium. Well worth exploring.
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May 27, 2026
If you are the sort of movie fan who appreciates a director who doesn’t tie everything up in neat little bows, you’ll love this. It’s at times confusing, at times frustrating. But it feels as if Parsons maintains control over every frame of the film. He knows where he wants to go, even if at times, like in the Backrooms, it’s sometimes hard to follow.
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May 27, 2026
Radio TimesMay 27, 2026
Ejiofor is at his hangdog best and is matched by Reinsve (Oscar-nominated this year for Norwegian drama Sentimental Value), whose calm, enigmatic exterior masks a mystery from her own past. However, the real star here is the setting and its fascinating metamorphosis from the bland to the downright uncanny.
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The IndependentMay 27, 2026
It’s mesmeric and wildly unique in a way I suspect will stand the test of time, since nothing else put to film feels this much like watching the collective Gen Z nightmare come to life – a half-confused grief over never having lived in the analogue era, an attraction to and fear of VHS infomercials, sofa stores, and TV dinner trays.
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May 29, 2026
[Parsons] is not so much a conventional storyteller as a director who establishes a mood and sets the viewer adrift in a sea of moments. The experience can be frustrating, but it's also rewarding. And that alone allows it to stand out in the current "play it safe" era of big-screen entertainment.
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LooperMay 27, 2026
Screen RantMay 27, 2026
The film really strives to examine the psychology of its characters in a way that it isn't fully equipped to do. Even when it falters, though, Backrooms is still an effective horror film, dealing in quiet terror over abject horror. In a world where fear is constantly thrown in our faces, having to look for it, and wanting to do so in the first place, can be just as disturbing.
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May 28, 2026
The inner tension of Backrooms is between mystery and explanation. The series is often more about Async than it is about the actual rooms, allowing it to remain somewhat open-ended. But a film has to give at least some clarity, and Backrooms is torn between its own enthralling enigma and that narrative necessity.
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May 27, 2026
What is far more unsettling than the environment itself, though, is how tedious the excursion winds up being, going from freaky to sleepy in the span of an hour. Once you’ve seen one of the backrooms, which begin to resemble a Leon’s showroom rendered by M.C. Escher, then you’ve seen them all.
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May 27, 2026
If the film captures something of the concept’s intriguing unease — with 20-year-old director Kane Parsons drawing from his own Backrooms-set short films, created when he was just a teenager — its underbaked storytelling made me wonder if some spooky ideas might be better left as whispers in the dark.
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The TimesMay 27, 2026
It's like watching fantastically dull scenarios from the 2007 first person video game Portal apparently a source of inspiration for Parsons. There are breaks for backstory — Clark had a volatile marriage; Mary's mother was sectioned — but these add little meaningful context or narrative grounding.
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