"Monsters" of the Backrooms
I want to mostly rant about the "monsters" of the backrooms, aka what makes it seem scary. At first i really expected more liminal horror than horror horror, but I did enjoyed it. [spoilers]
I still think a faceless, formless "monster" would fit more with the backrooms, especially regarding the message of the movie. I like the concept of the backrooms being a place for everything that ever existed, across space and time, yet being constantly remembered in that specific point of time to the point of unfamiliarity, its main focus being an "uncanny" nostalgia. Now, I don't think the human replicas (let's call it that) shouldn't have existed, if anything, I think it would make it more meaningful, just not as the "main" monster.
Since the main characters are supposed to represent one that wants to change and the other wanting to stay constant, I think it's mean to show how staying at one point in time for too long can technically kill you. The replicas can represent snapshots or a point of time where the humans it's based of had wished would stay, or be "constant". But instead of being a chasing monster, I think it should be something that follows you around, causing no actual harm beside psychological ones, hence like nostalgia. It tugs at the back of your mind, always lingering, yet it can't technically harm you. Maybe they'll stay just barely out of sight, because nostalgic memories are often undefined and blurry.
And if you approach, they won't do anything either, just like in the movie where Clark describes them as just existing. It is there, to remind you of a memory that you might have repeated so much in your head to the point it diverged from its original memory. It might retained some repeated actions defined by that memory, but they're nothing more than just to remind.
The real, formless, unseen monster then would've been Time. You can't see it, or define it, yet it chases after you whether you wanted it to or not. I think playing around with audio effects and the flickering lights would help with that feeling of fear, of knowing something's coming but you can't see it. And with Time comes change, which is something the human replicas does not have the ability to. So it would be interesting for this "formless monster" to only chase you specifically because YOU are capable of change, while ignoring the replicas because they're nothing more than still moments.
So it's either you are erased by time, only remembered by a version of you that is long gone, or you fought to be remembered more than just those moments. And I think if you managed to survive long enough inside, those deformed monsters would've been a sort of comfort to you, as you let yourself sit with those moments and appreciate its presence as part of you.
It would've been great to have horror where the visually scary monster isn't harmful at all, while the atmosphere that comes with that scare being the real deal. I guess I just find it a bit anticlimactic that the main monster was just one guy's replica, but if we were to look at it in the perspective of the other characters, he would've count as the "main villain" with the things he puts them through, so I guess it would have made sense in that POV. In the context of backrooms in the entirety... not so much.
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