*This article contains spoilers*

In case you haven’t heard, Backrooms, A24’s feature-length adaptation directed by 20-year-old viral phenomenon Kane Parsons (Kane Pixels)—has taken Tinseltown for a spin. Beyond its staggering $118 million opening weekend metrics, audiences leaving theaters are fiercely debating the film’s highly complex, deeply unsettling final act.

Enter: The formal introduction of “Still Lifes”—(first introduced in Found Footage #3). Designed quite literally to replicate human life, the “Still Life” concept is a rather disturbing one. You see, the film centers around a deeply fractured Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who explains to his therapist, Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve), while she is bound to a chair in a sickening, liminal replica of a dining room layout (you’ve seen the countless memes already),that the Backrooms function essentially as a cosmic storage drive for everything that ever was, aka, our past.

Let’s dive into the creepy ending.

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How Does ‘Backrooms’ End?

With Dr. Mary Kline bound to a chair located deep within the subterranean, Clark can be seen nearby flanked by a chilling guard detail of three native, malformed Still Life entities. What follows is a total psychological collapse, where Clark defends his stance to remain in the purgatory while demanding Mary validate the toxic, deep-seated resentment that defined his failed real-world existence.

Then the reveal.

Captain Clark, the manifestation of Clark’s anger that made an appearance earlier in the film, comes back…and this time he’s out for blood. The creature manifests as a hyper-violent, mutated caricature of the exact same pirate mascot costume Clark wore earlier in the film during a commercial shoot for his failing furniture outlet, and kills Clark before shifting its tracking array toward Mary as she breaks free and flees into the yellow corridors.

A high-velocity pursuit matrix follows and reaches its breaking point when Mary weaponizes her own psychological baggage to go on offense. Using her childhood trauma as a resource, Mary uses the heavy, raw masonry to temporarily take out pirate mascot, which results in a down a narrow, structurally restricted corridor layout that the lumbering, oversized frame of Captain Clark cannot physically penetrate.

Mary’s tactical escape, however, is cut short when she is intercepted by an Async scientist field team and detained within their subterranean facility. Subjected to a cold interrogation by a senior operator named Phil (Mark Duplass), she learns the mind-bending truth: the Backrooms function as an unstable echo chamber for human memories, which is why everything inside the maze feels like a twisted, glitchy version of reality. The movie leaves fans on a massive cliffhanger as Phil casually admits he has no idea what the company plans to do with her next, heavily hinting that Mary is officially off the grid and will never be allowed to leave the facility alive.

Who is in the Cast of A24’s Backrooms Movie?

Backrooms stars Oscar nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor as Clark, a struggling furniture showroom owner and failed architect who accidentally clips through reality into the endless yellow hallways. Joining him is The Worst Person in the World breakout star Renate Reinsve as Dr. Mary Kline, Clark’s dedicated therapist who gets drawn into the investigation after her client disappears. Independent cinema icon Mark Duplass plays Phil, a high-ranking researcher representing the elusive Async Corporation, while rising stars Finn Bennett (True Detective) and Lukita Maxwell (Shrinking) portray Kat and Bobby, the young furniture store employees who help film the initial expeditions into the liminal maze.

A Record-Shattering Debut

Produced on a modest $10 million budget, The Backrooms absolutely crushed its debut weekend, pulling in a massive $81.5 million domestically and a stunning $118 million worldwide.

Photo: A24

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