went and saw the “everything must go” cut of backrooms yesterday!!
if you like the youtube series or want just a bit more information about async in the context of the movie, you’ll really like it. def worth seeing it again imo but i am also lightly obsessed w this universe so take it with a grain of salt
if you dont care to see it again, but want to know what happens, i’ll describe below the cut. i’ll also have some of my speculations at the end
basically 3 async researchers are exploring the backrooms as they do. it starts out like a presentation, with a narrator (one of the men on the mission) describing the process and findings.
the async team finds three posters in a line that say “everything must go” that get smaller and clip through the floor. we know the posters are from clark’s store, but this event seems to predate clark’s discovery of the backrooms (or at least async’s knowledge of it). there is a good 5 minutes dedicated to documenting the posters, including scale, placement, composition, etc and they also determine that the posters are copies of the same objects, not different prints.
one of the researchers theorizes that there is another poster behind a wall based on their placement and trajectory, so they cut it open. the inside is like a regular wall, with spider webs and all. they do find a fourth poster, but also notice a hand clipping through another part of the opposite wall.
they decide to open up the wall fully to the other side to understand the hand. behind the wall is a change in decor to what we would see as more closely resembling clark’s store (though async doesnt seem to recognize it, despite acknowledging the change). the hand belongs to a naked mannequin, and next to it is a pirate ship’s wheel. we can recognize both of these items from clark’s store.
anyways the researchers continue exploring this new segment of the backrooms, despite one team member being reluctant and reminding them that they are severely behind schedule to return to base. it’s not directly stated, but implied that they are continuing to explore because this section is so different from everything else, and they want to bring back a cool discovery. (this is speculation, but i do think there is themes of compulsion when it comes to exploring the backrooms. like they can’t help but keep going)
they come upon a tv playing something i couldnt really understand, kind of generic horror movie creepy stuff ngl. it also kept flashing some word in mandarin i believe? but anyways they are immediately attacked by pirate clark and the video ends.
so my speculation is that this is the immediate precursor to the found footage at the beginning of the movie. i can’t confirm this, as i didn’t catch the names of the crew members unfortunately. but it would make sense, as it’s definitely their first encounter with pirate clark, and in the scene at the beginning, the async researcher is already running from something. it appears that he made it back to base, but the other researchers had already left, and when he tries to go the right way out (the sky door, which is also shown when mary is rescued), he finds it locked bc it isn’t the real exit. the narrator is the only surviving crew member from the discovery.
overall, i really liked it! rewatching the movie after seeing the youtube series left me with a lot of questions about how async found out about pirate clark, how they were able to set up the trap for him at the end, etc and i think the bonus scene helped illuminate some of that. but now i have more questions, like why did the backrooms take after clark specifically? did entities get created for the other people who accidentally wandered in, or is it more tied to the location of the null zone? much to think about
