Backrooms and Exit 8 make a perfect double feature

One of the author's favorite unofficial film types might be called "survivalone": a largely solitary protagonist shoved into a dangerous environment, minimal exposition, and long stretches of show-not-tell filmmaking. That framework has lately produced some videogame-adjacent horror, namely Exit 8 and A24's Backrooms, which pair neatly as a double feature.

Backrooms isn't technically adapted from the many backrooms games: it springs from Kane Parsons' YouTube series, itself inspired by a 2019 4chan creepypasta. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Clark, an ex-architect whose marriage and career have collapsed; he now works and lives in a furniture store, discovers a crack of light to the labyrinthine Backrooms, and becomes obsessed with their mystery.

The film's pre-title found-footage opener and Clark's first slow, immersive descent are very effective, and the practical sets—some 30,000 square feet of stage—sell the unsettling, mustard-colored maze.

backrooms, exit 8, survivalone, horror film, a24, kane parsons, 4chan creepypasta, chiwetel ejiofor, found footage, practical sets