Horror Recs: If You Liked "Backrooms"
Just got home from Backrooms and WOW what a movie. I loved every minute. It's not for everyone, I think, but movies aren't obligated to be for everyone. If you're in the crowd that did enjoy it, I humbly offer a few recommendations for movies that also revolve around liminal spaces, cosmic horror, and places that are not what they seem.
Vivarium: Suburbia becomes a monstrous nightmare as a couple find themselves trapped in an endless neighborhood, while a bizarre entity terrorizes them in their house. The visuals of Vivarium, with repeating identical houses, roads that loop on themselves, and more during the movie's climax are deeply reminiscent of the Backrooms. The lack of clear explanation of what's going on and the implications of a cosmically-terrifying truth turn this from a psychological thriller to an outright horror story.
Triangle (2009): A group of friends are caught in a storm while sailing, and board an abandoned ocean liner to escape their sinking boat. Of course, they're not alone on board, and what lurks in the empty halls is out for blood. This movie is TRIPPY. While trying not to say too much: this movie is inspired by the myth of Sisyphus. Between the abandoned ocean liner maze and the twisting, blood-soaked plotline, this is liminal horror done right.
Carnival of Souls (1962): After a traumatic car accident, Mary attempts to start a new life as a church organist far from the site of the accident. As strange visions plague her, it quickly becomes clear that her new life is not at all as it seemed. This movie is just one long liminal-space adventure. Mary endures episodes where the people around her can neither see nor hear her. Much of the movie is filmed in abandoned or empty buildings or in empty city streets, shot on location and not on sets, which gives it a sort of lived-in abandonment. It's often from uncanny angles, all set to organ music. It's a deeply unsettling experience.
Grave Encounters: When a ghost-hunting team does an overnight lock-in at an abandoned asylum, everything goes predictably and horribly wrong. The reason this makes the list isn't the ghosts, although there are plenty of those: it's the asylum itself. The building is an active malevolent force with its own agenda. It takes direct action to confuse, barricade, and even injure the team. Honestly, it really is worse than the ghosts! The Backrooms have tough competition on "most terrifying eldritch location" from this asylum.
There Are Monsters (2013): A group of friends filming a student project witness and film the bizarre end of humankind, as monsters replace humanity one by one. Not here for location, but for vibes. This found-footage terror was SO STRESSFUL, I actually had a nightmare afterwards. It has some shakycam issues, though they contribute to the overall sense of wrongness and disorientation. If you pay attention to the background of the movie early on, it becomes clear why this is cosmic horror: there are frequent references to an accident at the Large Hadron Collider, where unexplored areas of theoretical physics are finally explored. The implication here is that whatever the entities are, they arrived as a result of the accident from Somewhere Else.
If you’re wary of anything, please do check the movie on Does the Dog Die?, a site that lists a huge variety of potentially triggering content (anything from Santa being spoiled to a plane crash). Better safe than sorry, yknow?
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