nerdbass

when i ask "why" i am not asking in the literal sense, i want you to instead substitute every why with "what did the director mean when he did this;". this is not meant to be condescending - i genuinely am asking these because i loved this movie because of how just absolutely choked with denseness it is, it is laser focused, and i want other people to be able to enjoy it the same way i do.

so without further ado;

why is clark dressed as a pirate when he runs a furniture store?

what were non-fictional pirates actually like?

as the owner-manager of a furniture store, where do clark's class interests lie? is he a laborer?

what about all the other characters in the movie that show up for more than a single scene? what are their class interests?

what are the genders of all the characters that react with fear to the backrooms? what are the genders of all the characters that react with awe/i-want-to-know-more of the backrooms? if there is a pattern, why would the director make there be one?

what is meant by the store title "captain clark's ottoman empire"? what was the ottoman empire, and, outside bad furniture pun, does it have any relevance to the story?

why do they mark the entrances off the wall in blue tape in particular? what might that mean?

spoiler questions;

Because you cannot tell me that the kid who spent a summer meticulously crafting a 1:1 recreation of a demolished Texas mall for a psychological horror series on YouTube and who put so much time and effort into thinking about the psychology of The Oldest View….

…just so happened to skimp on dialogue and purpose for his cinematic debut film.

If you came away from the backrooms movie going “well there were plot and character moments in there that weren’t really explored and went nowhere” I am telling you that you are not paying attention.

This is one of those films where every line of dialogue, every odd thing you see in a frame, every unusual moment and shot composition, has a purpose and reason for being there.

And it’s not the film’s fault if you don’t wanna put in the effort to try and piece together what’s going on.

Now I’m not saying that makes it an inherently better film or something. You can still dislike it if you want. Taste is subjective. But it IS the type of movie that you get more out of the more you spend thinking about it than if you just brush off any weird moment or thing you didn’t understand as “weak writing.”

Like, I cannot stop thinking about the film and the more I do the more connections and moments I find that flesh out the world and the characters to me. Even the most innocuous little details are suddenly starting to make sense and offer up insight into the larger picture of this world…and it’s leading me to go down this conspiracy theory rabbit hole that makes its connection to the YouTube series even wilder and existentially creepier imo.

Can we take a moment to appreciate how AMAZINGLY WRITTEN MARY IS?! Because she is, honest to god, one of the best written horror protagonists in recent memory.

Like, where do I even begin???

The way the Backrooms itself BRILLIANTLY connects to her own childhood trauma and how it is ingeniously tied into her opening monologue?!

How said trauma defines and develop her character, and how did she become a therapist so that she can prevent people from suffering what her mother had to endure?!

How her path/outlook on life connects to and contrasts with Clark's... AND HER ABSOLUTELY GLORIOUS AND COMPLETELY VALID CRASHOUT WHERE SHE CALLS OUT HIS BS?!?!

*goes to Tumblr for insightful perspectives*

*sees everyone is just talking about "loser white man" instead of minority main character*

Eye test.

It's something I really love to see, because I really love it when a film actually trusts the audience to listen and pay attention to the film and actually figure things out.

This might be a hot take, but I thought what they did for the "monster" of the Backrooms was ABSOLUTELY GENIUS! How it organically builds upon how the Backrooms work, how it connects to the real world and its people (specifically Clark), and how it creates something that is dangerous and terrifying, and yet at the same time, frighteningly human!

Let me ask you something. Do you think it's interesting that out of all the "people" that were in the Backrooms, Clark's was the only one that was actually dangerous and was actually going around killing people? That's because the Backrooms remembers things in the real world, and "the more times it remembers, the less it does" until it only remembers the details that stand out the most, like how, when you remember a childhood bedroom, you only remember specific furniture or decorations. And the same goes for people!

Because Clark's life is dominated by his anxieties, frustration, fears, and, most importantly, his desire to lash out at everything he thinks is to blame, the Backrooms only remembered those negative feelings. And eventually they all culminated into this dangerous entity. Just like how he lashed out and attacked others that he believes are the fault of where he is, this entity of his own (unintentional) making lashes out and attacks everyone in sight, because, as you can see by the expression on its face, it too is driven by those same anxieties and fears!