Halloween 2026: September 21st

Backrooms (2026)

In May of 2014, an image of an empty room from a future Wisconsin Hobby Lobby location was posted to 4chan. The photo of identical walls senselessly leading into each other, dull lighting overhead, soggy looking carpet below, and piss-yellow wallpaper between was accompanied by some short text. It described "noclipping" out of reality and into a place called the Backrooms, a labyrinthine dimension of identically drab locations that are seemingly empty except for when it suddenly, malevolently isn't. The author of this piece of fiction has never stepped forward but their post quickly became a foundational text for the growing internet subgenre of "liminal space" horror. Among the many resulting fan projects was a series of found footage short films, made by a sixteen year old former Minecraft LetsPlayer named Kane Parsons. This became extremely popular and Parsons soon had major Hollywood studios interested in developing his work into a feature film. A24 and Atomic Monster won out and Parsons' "Backrooms" movie opened this past May to massive box office and positive reactions from critics and fans. What this means for the future of Hollywood has already been debated endlessly, meaning "Backrooms" is easily 2026's most discussed horror release. Naturally, I must weigh in on it during the Halloween months. 

At the start of the nineties, failed architect Clark is currently managing a furniture store called Cap'n Clark's Ottoman Empire. To deal with his divorce and alcoholism, Clark is seeing therapist Mary Kline, who has lingering issues of her own. Annoyed by the store's high electricity bills, and baffled by a strange switch on the circuit box, Clark investigates the basement show room... And notices a sliver of light in the wall. Upon investigating, he falls through the wall into another world of self-replicating rooms arranged in a random, endless order. Clark becomes obsessed with these back rooms, calling upon his two employees to record an exploration with a video camera. However, the further into the strange nature of this world Clark goes, the more he learns how dangerous it can be. It's only a matter of time before Mary Kline is pulled into the Backrooms as well. 

The eeriness of liminal space imagery arises from its lack of people. The visuals are familiar. Indeed, part of what made the initial Backrooms post stick in the brain so much is that nearly everyone has seen a room that looks something like that. It could be the back of an aging department store, a weird hotel, your old high school, a relative's apartment. You know this place but it’s bereft of human connection, so lacking in distinctive touches that it feels like a moment in a dream. As for why this appeals to the modern generation so much, I think it has to do with the death of communal spaces. Some have observed that the current crop of teenagers grew up when malls and other traditional gathering places for youths were starting to die off, making distant memories of public but strangely empty locations a cultural touchstone perhaps. In “Backrooms,” Parson repeatedly draws a parallel between these dead spaces, whether it be the titular extra-dimensional complex or Clark's failing business, and supposedly warmer areas like living rooms, therapist’s offices, or an outdoor apartment complex. All the places in “Backrooms” seem artificial, impersonal, and they all end up a part of the titular labyrinth eventually. 

It dovetails with a growing sense of cultural isolation and alienation. (Also, there's a brief lingering shot of phone lines and an ever-present electric hum in the film, which probably isn't a shout-out to dissociated from reality classic “Serial Experiments Lain” but I'm gonna say it is anyway.) These are all symptoms of late-stage capitalism, of individual connection being squeezed out by soulless mass production driven by corporations demanding ever-more growth and profit even as it chokes the life out of the society around it. This is perhaps why the imperfect echoes of people and places seen in the Backrooms recall the close-but-not-quite-right visuals of modern day generative A.I. The walls, doorways, and eventual residents of the Backrooms look perhaps familiar and logical from a distance but, a closer look, reveals nightmarish visual glitches. “Backrooms” takes place in the nineties and its ending implies that, whatever the Backrooms are, they are growing and spreading. Which means, thirty-six years later in 2026, we might as well all be living in the Backrooms. Inhuman intelligences have, indeed, attempted to replace agreed-upon actual reality with an eerie simulacrum and we're all fucking stuck in it. In the press tour after the film's release, its director would express his disdain for generative A.I., suggesting it was on his mind while making the movie. 

These are the thoughts and feelings “Backrooms” invoked in me but maybe I'm treating all that yellow wallpaper as a Rorschach test. Parson's film smartly avoids providing an origin for the titular phenomena, where the Backrooms came from and to what purpose it exists remaining mysterious. Which doesn't mean that the movie avoids telling us what it's doing. The opening line is Mary Kline talking about how maladaptive coping mechanisms form, how the human mind repeats what is familiar to it. A key monologue describes what the Backrooms does as like a faulty memory of an experience. Blurry MRI scans of the brain, comparable to the winding rooms, crop up at one point. Probably the hackiest part of Will Soodik's screenplay is Dr. Kline's back story, which includes a mentally ill mother. She carries around the literal last remaining piece of a troubled childhood home, some loaded visual symbolism that naturally gets a key role in the climax. I probably could've done without that stuff but Parsons' film, at the very least, doesn't belabor this element too much. 

Pretty much every positive review of “Backrooms” complimented the evident talent the young director displayed here. While I have no doubt that Osgood Perkins providing his usual cinematographer, editor, sound designer, and set dresser probably deserve some thanks, “Backrooms” suggest that Parsons knows how to make an effective horror movie. While the Youtube shorts were made in Blender, physical sets were built for the feature, making the surreal environments properly tactile. An overall eerie vibe is successfully captured. Several long sequences are done in the found footage style, effectively extending the sense of disorientation the characters feel to the audience and furthering the feeling of a half-remembered, off-putting nightmare. The highlight found footage moment ends in a well-done bit of visual misdirection. Parson is so adapt at generating a creepy feeling and a sense of tension that I'll forgive the film for its somewhat disappointing lapse into more traditional monster movie antics in the last act. 

Despite a kind of lame formative trauma for its heroine and a finale that maybe leaves behind the material's more interesting ideas, “Backrooms” is good. I would say it's at least the second best A24 film based on an internet meme, depending on how you feel about “Zola” or the Nic Cage “This Man” movie. (Aside from the obvious, Parsons pays homage to at least two other notable works of internet-based horror here, which is hopefully not an indication of some creepypasta cinematic universe forming or whatever.) Chiwetel Ejiofor is one of 2026's more relatable Toxically Masculine Lead in a Horror Movies, channeling a bit of Jack Torrance. Renate Reinsve does the physical stuff nicely as Dr. Kline. How the script essentially hands over protagonist status between these characters at one point is a bit odd but the pacing rolls with it. It doesn't feel lumpy. Overall, I would say young filmmakers getting scouted from Youtube to make well done new horror movies is an overall good thing for both the genre and the film industry and I'm curious what this guy will do next. [7/10]

Diablio (1992)

West Africa is home to over one hundred distinct species of snakes. This, naturally, means the slithering reptiles frequently appear in the myths of the local people. Serpent deities represent rebirth, eternity, fertility and creation in many stories. Pythons are considered sacred animals in several belief systems. Snakes are often feared as well and many erroneous beliefs about the animals proliferate. They are also associated with witches and warlocks. This is still a very real concern in modern day Ghana, paranoia around witchcraft leading to persecution and isolation. For one example, there is the obayifo. This is a vampire/witch like creature said to wear skirts made of snake or transform into them. Which brings me to “Diabolo,” a Ghanaian horror movie made in either 1989, 1991, or 1992. (Sources vary.) The film is an example of how myths about snakes and sorcerers survive into the modern day. It's also an example of so-called “Ghallywood” filmmaking, extremely low budget productions made by unprofessional crews and spoken in English, whether or not the actors are fluent in the language or not. Which means we are going into some wild and weird territory here. 

The plot of “Diabolo” is both threadbare and repetitive, to the point that it's hard to call it a plot at all: A man picks up prostitutes at parties and lure them back to his home with large amounts of cash. He drugs them, lays them on his bed, and undresses him. Upon which he transforms into a python and slithers between their legs. Sometimes, this causes the women to vomit up money afterwards. Usually, it results in their deaths the next morning, as they stumble home. The Diabolo Man keeps this up until someone decides something must be done. A shaman is enlisted to help fight this evil but it's ultimately up to the women the Diabolo preys on to stop the monster.

That straight-to-the-point synopsis doesn't really explain what watching “Diabolo” is like though. The film begins with a lengthy sequence set at a night club. At one point, a one-legged dancer named Lewis Pee is introduced with on-screen text. He does, indeed, break dance despite only having one leg. Another draw-out moment is devoted to a stage magician doing his act in full. A subplot of some sort concerns men wrongfully accused of the Diabolo's crimes, thrown into prison and brutalized by the cops. Other times, “Diabolo” simply watches people walk from location to location or just hanging out. Such moments are often scored to popular, unlicensed music. The version available on YouTube actually has to mute the audio during these sequences, so as to avoid the website's copyright detection system. 

If that doesn't make it clear, “Diabolo” is not a slick production. The sound mixing is atrocious, dialogue often hard to decipher over the blaring music or blowing wind sounds. That music is usually either stock music or the film' theme song, a jazzy Casio keyboard pre-set with Atari 2600 explosion sounds interlaced with the title being shouted. What dialogue can be heard is often difficult to understand, owing to the thick accents of the actors. The camera work is frequently shaky, going out of focus a few times. The shadow of a boom mic lingers on-screen for several minutes during an early sequences. The acting is wooden, lines stiltedly shouted or mumbled. The performers often are reduced to flailing around on the ground. The special effects are, unsurprisingly, crude as hell. The opening credits feature pixilated computer fonts flashing around on-screen. The final scene brings the image of a snake with a human head – a reoccurring concept in African mythology – to life by burying an actor up to his ears and laying a dead snake behind him. 

Yes, a dead snake. As previously observed, animals being endangered or killed are not a concern in West African cinema. A ritual involves a real chicken being decapitated. The finale has a cat menaced by a python. (And, thankfully, left unharmed.) The movie seems determined to generate fear mostly by having real snakes slither around on top of people. That should make it clear that “Diabolo” is a pretty sleazy motion picture. One of its earliest shots is a lingering close-up on an actress' ass. Despite repeatedly featuring women being drugged and sexually assaulted with a reptile, the film also doesn't contain any nudity or on-screen sex. Thus, a movie with an extremely fucked-up premise is also too guarded to depict that fucked-up premise on-screen. The result is a motion picture that vacillates between unintentional hilarity and extreme discomfort. One minute, you're laughing at actors spasmodically rolling around or the hilariously bad editing. The next, you are seriously afraid that an animal is about to be killed. Or watching a witch doctor pull what I think is rope out of a woman's orifice, a scene I did not understand the significance of. 

All of that is bordered by quite a lot of tedium too, during those scenes of people just walking or dancing or sitting in a room. My closest point of comparison is the Nigerian “Witchdoctor of the Livingdead,” which was similarly crude and childish. That movie had an infectious spirit of anything-can-happen nuttiness to it, which the sluggishly paced “Diabolo” cannot summon. It's a film that shifts between being a Bleeding Skull mind-melter, a hilariously amateurish outsider production, and feeling like it could become a real snuff film at any minute. I'm genuinely not sure what to make of it. People in Ghana seemed to have liked it though. Star/writer/director Bob Smith Junior became so associated that he became professionally known as “the Diabolo Man” or “The Snake Man.” It seems to have gotten at least one, maybe two, sequels. I can't say the film didn't bore me. I also can't say that it wasn't interesting. “Diabolo” is certainly a deranged, baffling experience. [6/10]

Tales of the Unexpected: Number Eight

The minute I found out there was an episode of “Tales of the Unexpected” featuring Brad Dourif as a potentially murderous hitchhiker, that shit shot to the top of my watch list. An unassuming man, with a bucket hat and a gold watch, drives down a road. He impulsively picks up a wild-eyed hitchhiker. The radio plays a news story about an on-the-loose serial killer, nicknamed the Will-o-the-Wisp Killer, that has claimed seven victims so far. The supposed description of the killer matches the appearance of the hitchhiker. The passenger grows increasingly unhinged, as he berets and goads and threatens the driver. They eventually end up at a lonely road-side diner, only a waitress and two women inside. The hitchhiker's behavior grows more intense, the driver and the other occupants of the building feeling increasingly certain that they are in danger. 

By 1984, Brad Dourif was still four years off from playing his most iconic character but was still well on his way to being typecast as a psychopath. I guess that happens when you have a wiry frame, intense eyes, and get good at projecting an aura of menace. That's exactly what he does in “Number Eight.” At first, he strikes the viewer as merely eccentric, cracking jokes at the driver's expense and generally being overly familiar with someone he just met. Yeah, he does a cackling laugh that sounds a lot like the Chucky laugh too. However, Dourif does an excellent job of slowly upping the implicit threats, the distressing behavior. What starts as awkward flirting with the women at the restaurant escalates to personal boundaries being crossed. He keeps referencing a “party” he's planning, which feels like more of a sickening promise of inevitable violence than a mere gag the longer the episode goes on.

Now, this is “Tales of the Unexpected.” Every installment of the series is predicated on the story having a twist ending. Do you believe that the man acting like a dangerous nut case is truly more dangerous than the quiet, submissive man he's traveling with? The other leading man of this story is Dennis Christopher, also a physically slight character actor with distinctive eyes and a quiet intensity. He had played a murderous loner already by this point too. Yet Christopher makes a good foil to Dourif. He does a good job of playing up the guy's nerves, obviously because he's stuck in a very tense situation and not because he's hiding anything. Alright, so the ending for this tale might be quite expected. That doesn't make watching two beloved performers bouncing off each other any less rewarding to watch. “Number Eight” is tense, secluded, and completely compelling. [8/10]

Friday the 13th: The Series: Faith Healer

David Cronenberg was coming off the biggest hit of his career in 1988, the remake of “The Fly” pushing the King of Body Horror as far into the mainstream as he'd ever go. I don't know why he randomly directed an episode of “Friday the 13th: The Series” at this time. Perhaps out of Canadian solidarity. The titular “Faith Healer” is Stewart Fishoff and, obviously, he's a fraud. Skeptic debunker Jerry exposes Fishoff in front of his audience, who angrily chase him into an alleyway. That's when the guy stumbles upon today's Cursed Object. It's a silk glove that can transfer a sickness from one body to another, healing one person at the cost of giving another an amplified version of the same disease. Jack enlists the help of Jerry to get close to Fishoff, who is now very rich and powerful. There's a problem though: Jerry is dying of a terminal illness and sees this magical glove as a chance to cure himself and finish off on an old enemy.

If you're wondering whether Cronenberg's trademarks would manifest at all when applied to a weekly TV show, “Faith Healer” doesn't wait long to answer that. One of the irate victims Fishoff ripped off is an old woman, walking with crutches and with scars on her face. The effects of the magic glove causes the fake healer's hand to break-out in hideous sores. What ailment Jerry is suffering from exactly is never specified. It causes his chest to break out in large, pulsating black nodes. Maybe he has some strain of Bubonic Plague or especially aggressive leprosy. I don't know if Cronenberg was sought out to direct this one because the script was heavy on the body horror or if he brought that element to the episode himself. Either way, it marks this an especially grisly installment of the show.

The conflict being between a religious fraudster and a skeptical debunker also inserts a theme of science versus faith. That too feels like a distinctly Cronenberg-ian choice. If Dave's work has always been about the internal becoming external, Stewart Fishoff's rotten character manifesting as mutated skin despite his squeaky-clean public image is fitting. Jerry also makes a joke about bending spoons, turning this into Cronenberg's take on the James Randi/Uri Gellar rivalry. That seems like the kind of thing that would interest Dave. The last act involves a tense shoot-out between two guys that look a bit like Michael Ironside, in a city that's clearly Toronto, invoking “Scanners” as well.

In fact, “Faith Healer” feels enough like a David Cronenberg movie that it doesn't feel much like an episode of “Friday the 13th: The Series.” Micki and Ryan have a fairly small role here. Jack is an old friend of Jerry's, the scenes of them talking being a highlight. However, most of the episode revolves around the faith healer and the skeptic, two characters never seen before or since. Was a horror auteur allowed to essentially do his own thing here or did it just work-out that Cronenberg's episode happens to stand alone from the rest of the series well enough? Whatever the reason, there's enough twisted flesh and scientific themes to please fans of the director. [7/10]