Backrooms

I wasn’t aware of the initial creepypasta photo or viral web series that inspired Kane Parsons’ singularly unsettling BACKROOMS but it somehow seems strangely familiar to me anyway. I feel like I actually know and have experienced such liminal spaces in dreams my whole life. Most my dreams are about cat wrangling for sure, but on many occasions I’m just a poor sap trying to find his way home from a maze like mall/hotel/airport. It didn’t help my psyche that after viewing BACKROOMS at my local AMC, I exited into Philly’s barely functioning “Fashion District” mall. Once the greatest mall known to man (SUNCOAST VIDEO, FYE, KAYBEE TOYS, etc), it’s now a confusing maze of escalators that go nowhere, ramps that hit walls, food courts serving things I’ve never heard of, broken elevators, and restricted doorways. It even has the nerve to connect to a subway, a train station and many an office building presumably filled with people pushing papers and whatnot. It’s not a great vibe and I took…