Backrooms Explained: All Your WTF Questions Answered

[00:00] Paul. In this video, we're  breaking down the back rooms. Sorry, backrooms. Drop the D. It's cleaner. The  brand new A24 horror has a lot to unpack from it,  

[00:17] I want to go through some of the big things in the  movie and try to answer the unanswered questions.   I know that trying to explain this film is like  trying to tell someone to draw a dog who's never  

[00:29] seen one, but yeah, going to give it my best.  Now, the first question you probably have is   what are the back rooms? Well, I'm sure you know  by now as this movie's been out a couple of weeks,   but in case you don't, backrooms started as a  creepy pasta 4chan thread in 2019. Their users  

[00:45] started talking about how you could end up in an  infinite liinal indoor space with endless yellow   walls, much like we see in the movie. people  started building up the legend that you could   no clip or glitch through a wall in reality and  end up in the back rooms. If you've ever played  

[00:58] a a game where you've glitched through a wall or  something, then you'll probably know the feeling   and users claimed it was happening in real life.  A community then built up the mythology of the   back rooms with every user adding in their own  experience in law. This became its own neverending  

[01:12] thing with nothing but personal touches. So,  in a way, the back rooms became its own back   rooms. Right from the off though, they got a  lot of things down that come across to the film,   including the constant buzzing, fluorescent  lights, and long and neverending environment. If  

[01:25] you kids are as old as me as well, h then you'll  probably remember what it was like being dragged   through shopping malls with your parents before  the invention of mobile phones. It was rough,   mate. It was rough. Everything seemed dull and  uninteresting, and there was a constant state  

[01:39] of boredom. We had no headphones, no podcasts, no  YouTubers to keep us distracted. just that music   in the background and our parent pulling our  arm along. It was hell and I vividly remember   it was like watching a screen crush video. But  that's very much the feeling I got when watching  

[01:54] the movie, especially with it being set in the  '90s. Everything feels familiar yet slightly off.   And it kind of reminds me of those early AI mods  where faces and places all had something slightly   wrong with them. If you've ever photocopied a  photocopy of a photocopy, then you'll no doubt  

[02:08] have experienced something called generation  loss. Every time you copy something, the copy   can't completely replicate it, and the certain  information is lost. Doing this over and over   would create something that barely resembles the  original. And that's kind of what the back rooms  

[02:21] have become, which we see perfectly as we move  through the floors and see Mary's childhood home   over and over. But the film itself is directed by  Kane Parsons, who puts us in the shoes of Clark   and Mary. The former is a divorced architect whose  business is struggling, and he discovers a back  

[02:34] room when going through the underfloor. The entire  movie is filled with an idea of duality and the   thought that as is above, so is below. Beyond the  back room's entrance being in this basement, we   also have the idea of duality lights throughout.  For example, the logo for the film looks like the  

[02:48] letters are shifted to create two of each of them.  Clark doesn't know if the store is pirate themed   or Ottoman Empire themed. Mary is obsessed with  two concrete handprints from when she was younger,   and so on and so on. Hell, even the therapy  roleplay session is played out twice with it  

[03:01] happening in the real world and later in the  back rooms. At its most basic level though,   the back rooms feel like almost a memory trying  to manifest itself. We all have a subconscious   buried deep inside of us, and the back room  feels like it's filled with these lost moments,  

[03:14] a window within, if you will. This is, of course,  the name of Mary's book as well, which deals with   tackling things buried within us. There's also  an idea in physics that the past doesn't actually   exist because all we do is inhabit the present.  I'll let someone smarter than me explain that. Uh,  

[03:28] but it did cross my mind that the back rooms may  even be the past occupying a space below us. The   back room seems to be a place where trauma exists  in a material form and it comes in to fill this   empty void. Even Clark falling from the chair from  the commercial is something that repeats down in  

[03:43] the back rooms because of how embarrassing that  moment was. The endide shirt also appears down in   the lair as well and this was what was worn by  Bobby during that scene. And the next question   that builds off what are the back rooms is what  are the entities? These actually got introduced  

[03:57] in the law very early on and popped up in some  of the first images on 4chan. I really think   this adds to what the backrooms are though  and how if you spend too long down there,   you'll eventually get found. Now, according to  the backroomsfandom.com article, entities are the  

[04:12] unnatural creatures and beings that inhabit  the endless liinal spaces. They range from   predatory monsters to distorted mimics, and their  nature varies depending on the law source. So,   that's that. Now, for the next part of the video,  I am going to talk about some of the entities. Uh,  

[04:25] but I have to say that some of these aren't in  Kane's cannon. Um, and they're just made up by   other people. So whether these ones will appear  or not down the line, something that remains to   be seen, but the film's versions are pretty much  all still lives who are humanoid creatures that  

[04:39] can sometimes be aggressive. They're created when  the back rooms tries to copy reality and creates   a figure to fill a space. Now, that takes me onto  my next question, which is who's the lady in red?  

[04:51] Well, I think this is clearly Clark's ex-wife  due to a couple of little clues. In the film,   we see a photo of her at one point, and she's got  long red hair just like the entity. When doing the   roleplay with Mary, Clark also cuts her scalp  off so that Mary can play the part of his wife.  

[05:05] The scene takes place in a recreation of his home,  which he's filled with a makeshift family. Lastly,   upon Pyra Clark entering, the entity immediately  tries to run out the room. Though, she gets stuck   in a corner. It's a lot like how Clark's wife up  and left him in the real world. Now, we're going  

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[07:23] find you. Just click that link below to claim  that 60% off and get your personal data off the   market right now with Incogn. Thank you. Now, we  do know that a sequel is currently in development   and I think it'll probably explore a lot more of  the other entities. Again, some of these aren't  

[07:37] in Kane's cannon, so if they don't show up, throw  stones at me or some [ __ ] Call me a well-dressed   wanker. But there's ones called life forms. What  do you mean I'm dressed like [ __ ] But yeah,   tall, spinly creatures that mimic human voices to  attract people to go and investigate them. They  

[07:55] seem to be covered in cables and are likely built  off the idea of electronics. There's also smiles,   which are shadowy figures with large eyes  and massive grins. From what I can gather,   they only attack you if you look at them. So, I  think they could do something really cool with  

[08:08] them in the sequel if they end up going that  route. It's also the hounds as well, h which   are like dogs, hound dogs. You get that one. H.  And this does open up whether animals can also   be copied too. The film of course has a seagull  that's flying around as well. Um, so I don't know,  

[08:22] maybe a seagull got chased by a dog or something  and it manifested it as that. Yeah, this also   shows that animals have access to the back rooms  too. There's actually a newspaper article in the   film that talks about garbage being dumped in  the harbor, which has attracted the seagulls. So,  

[08:35] it's possible that around this harbor, there's  also an entrance to the door, which we figured   it out. We're doing God's work here. There's  also the skin stealer as well, which skins their   victims and wears their skin in order to try and  create an identity for themselves. It's hundreds  

[08:49] and hundreds of different kinds of them, though,  that are all listed on the wiki. Um, and yeah,   like I said, we might might see them in a sequel.  Might not. Now, there's also the theory that they   might even be extraterrestrial in nature.  Yes, I have been watching the X Files a lot,  

[09:02] mate. Breakdowns on the channel now. The reason  that this is though is because we see the caveman   cutout, which has the Voyager disc that was shut  out into space. In case you don't know, this   basically contains a message for extraterrestrial  life, saying, "Hey, mate, come to Earth. We're  

[09:15] cool mate. We're not constantly starting wars  and stuff. We're great here. We we always hit   the thumbs up." But this being in the back rooms  could highlight that aliens did come into contact   with it and have been observing Earth and trying  to learn more about us. In the movie though,  

[09:28] I think the Caveman cutouts used as a way to lure  entities and this is so they can be studied by the   cameras. This is carried out by the company Async  who are a mysterious organization observing the   backrooms. As we learn, Async are trying to get  in sync with the back rooms and learn what the  

[09:43] shifted reality is so they can get in a sync  with it. And it's a good name. I'll give them   that. As Mary discovers though, they start off by  manufacturing MRI machines, which kind of plays   into the themes of the movie. Our editor John  pointed out that MRI machines copy and photograph  

[09:58] images and layers of someone in order to create  an image of them that can be studied. However,   these photographs obviously just provide certain  knowledge without giving us a wider picture of the   person. In the law, Async apparently discovered  the back rooms around 1988 when they were working  

[10:12] on a magnetic distortion system known as project  KV31. This allowed them to open doorways in the   back rooms. This has also been linked to the real  life earthquake that happened in Santa Cruz. And   it saw that this occurred when they tapped in the  other realm. 1988 is also the year I was born. I  

[10:28] was born on the 8th of the 8th, 1988. So, my birth  might have ushered this in. And now I'm cashing in   with YouTube videos. Although they initially  seem like they're trying to solve things like   overpopulation and the housing crisis, actually  not as nice as they seem. Turns out they're just  

[10:43] after exploiting the space all in the aims  of corporate greed. Yay. Which I suppose you   could even argue might be why they made the MRI  machines. Yes, sure. H they might have been doing   it to help people, but they're doing it for money  money as well. But John pointed out that there's  

[10:57] definitely like an anti-corporate/ capitalism  theme going on in addition to the trauma memory   stuff. Most of the back rooms are modeled  after empty office space. And in the series,   async pitches to sell housing and storage space.  Clark's main issue also stems from needing money,  

[11:11] and it's clear that this is what destroyed his  marriage. He's also a business owner who puts his   employees at risk to explore the back rooms. And  Pirate Clark is a warped version of a corporate   mascot who ends up consuming his staff along with  Clark. Even when he's asked if he's alone as well,  

[11:26] he says he's not because he has his employees and  but they don't really seem to like you, Clark.   Clearly, his world is a shell of what it should be  though, which very much represents the back rooms.   Even him entering and seeing a big sign that says  pot. Well, well, stop. Uh, but yeah, that doesn't  

[11:40] trigger any alarm bells. Although you might think  Pirate Clark is there because of Clark, I actually   think he could be there for another reason. The  entity appears throughout the movie, even before   Clark has entered the back rooms, and he's the one  who kills the async researcher at the beginning.  

[11:53] This takes place on June 19th, though, but Clark  doesn't enter until the 29th. So, how can this be?   Well, I'll tell you. I actually think the pyro  clock is there because of Duplass. He of course  

[12:05] entered the back rooms before and is someone whose  mind's likely filling the void. Personally, I   think he saw Clark's advert on TV before observing  him in there and it's something that didn't really   register. I think it was only upon seeing Clark  on the camera and then seeing the commercial that  

[12:24] and guy with a beard, they may have even been  customers of Clark or something. He clearly   doesn't remember them, though, and his mind's  just filling in the back rooms from faces that   he's seen. However, it's also possible that him  living in the store is something that's filling  

[12:36] it before he even enters. Time clearly works  differently as well. And when we see the mural,   you might also notice the figure being fed to  Pirate Clark has something in their hand. This   looks a lot like the clothes stand that Mary beats  it with later on. So potentially there's just lots  

[12:51] of tiny wimy wibbly wobbly stuff. Pirate clock,  the ship wheel, the no credit sign, and beach   image. They're all there from the start. So time  might just work differently. Time might not even   exist there. And when Clark shows up crazy at  Mary's, he might have been down there a couple  

[13:06] of weeks. I mean, he's got to the point that he's  eating the entities. So yeah, probably has tried a   lot of [ __ ] But these images and things within  it constantly appear throughout. And the beach   image also appears at the end when Ace and Capture  Mary. It's stretched down, distorted though,  

[13:20] much like the images seen in the episode of the  series informational video. Now, when we get a   shot of her and her mother at the start, we do see  the sky behind them looks like this as well. So,   it's possible that Mary was filling it in two.  However, it's also possible that Mary's mother  

[13:33] had entered the back rooms as well, and this is  what sent her insane. In the film, Norah suffers   from paranoid schizophrenia, and she believed that  outsiders were coming to get her. Thus, she kept   her and Mary locked up for years with the doors  blocked with furniture akin to how it's piled on  

[13:46] top of each other in the back rooms. Norah was  eventually committed and the house was knocked   down by what could be perceived as outsiders.  Mary kept a cement handprint from the pair's drive   though which links in the idea of an impression of  the past. Because of this, people have theory time  

[14:01] that Norah no clipped and was taken in the back  rooms which is a place that broke her mind. This   is why she's so scared of people or maybe things  that look like people and stays locked in safe   from the world. Even the fact that the sky looked  fake at the start as well. To me, that did make me  

[14:16] think this might have been the case. The way we  see the crane drop something on her and a young   Mary could also highlight how they're being buried  in the back rooms. Or it may be a reach. How   about there was a character called Peter from the  expanded lore who was driven insane by wandering  

[14:30] the back rooms. He was eventually found by a sink  and kept in observation away from human contact.   This sent him even more insane and they refused to  let him out into the real world. However, he ended   up escaping. Uh but he did get institutionalized  because he'd completely lost his sanity much like  

[14:45] Norah. So yeah, Norah might have been there h  but people have definitely been there before   including Ivan Beck who's the leader of async in  the expander law. He had previous knowledge of   the back rooms and used this to explore the space.  There's also the fact that the back rooms have an  

[14:58] effect on the real world. As we see there's wonky  switches on the circuit breaker and the fact the   lights keep going out shows that something is  affecting reality. I think that just as much as   the people affect the back rooms. The back rooms  also end up affecting them. For example, the world  

[15:13] of the store has some subliminal things in it  that hint to this greater world. On the outside,   someone's spray painted ripoff, which clearly is  talking about the prices at the store. However,   it could also be a nod of how the back rooms  themselves are a ripoff of the real world,  

[15:26] aka a fake version. There's also a sign in the  basement that says more downstairs. Beyond that,   we have Duplass watching Neverending Story,  which feels like the neverending nature of   the back rooms. Throughout the film, you also  hear the idea of constant loops and how neural  

[15:40] pathways keep us locked within them. This is  highlighted by the end in which Mary can only   see the outside world through a window like when  she was younger. I think it's poetic, especially   since the mural she found of Pirate Clark showed a  window at the top. She then smiles at the irony of  

[15:54] her being unable to escape her loop and we sees  the back rooms are now filled with more trauma.   We close out with a version of her being created  just like Pirate Clark which highlights an aspect   of her will now one of the back rooms. She is  now infecting it as well, which we saw during  

[16:08] the chase scene. When the pirate was going after  her, she emerged in a suburban neighborhood akin   to the one that she lived in as a child. She  also appeared in front of that damn skyscraper/   apartment block sign. And this also was something  that she ended up coming across. So, there's this  

[16:22] constant infection and one person's life bleeding  into others. There's also Clark who's killed while   his pirate versions captured and dissected. Clark  is a a very unreliable narrator and is probably  

[16:34] um downplaying the abuse towards his wife. I mean,  the guy was pretty chill about having cats head   in the freezer, but he wanted kids though. Um  and we did see that he had a weird parent child   relationship with Pirate Clark. A pirate child  relationship. But yeah, Clark wants to be a  

[16:49] parent, but gets picked up like a baby and then  eaten by the darker version of himself. Pirate   Clark is Clark's anger and shame personified and  he eats him because he's copying Clark eating the   still life guy at the dinner table. The creature  also arrives when Clark accepts that he refuses to  

[17:04] change and it consumes him because he's now stuck  in the same loop as the entities. An architect   should have a complete ball with the back rooms,  but he's unable to really create and is simply   stuck in this mundane loop. He's surrounded by  his failure and stuck with the mediocrity he  

[17:17] resigned himself to instead of chasing his dreams.  This turned him bitter and full of anger and rage   while he supported his wife's dream instead of his  own. Rather than doing this because he loved her   though and wanted to, he became an alcoholic and  ended up pushing her away. I've also seen theories  

[17:33] um that the clock we see at the end is actually  an entity clock and the real Clark is dead. This   is because he lurks around corners and the scar  from his foreheads apparently missing. Now, I did   go back and watch the movie with this in mind,  but yes, the scar is definitely still there. So,  

[17:48] theory time debunked, but I think the movie is  all about how what we do and inflict on others   echoes throughout history. And it's a movie I  haven't stopped thinking about. Hope this video's   also helped you with some unanswered questions.  And if you have more, please drop them below in  

[18:01] the comments. And someone smarter than me will  hopefully answer and do my job for me. Also,   I know a lot of you had questions about why I  hadn't covered this or obsession and were like,   "Why the hell does heavy spoilers only do old  movies anymore?" Well, yes, sort of. Burn his  

[18:16] whole channel down. I wish you [ __ ] would, mate.  But the truth is, I've actually been on holiday   and though I wanted to be like, "Ah, mate, I'm  on holiday. I can't do them at the moment." Uh,   if you've ever spoke to someone in insurance  who's got your home insurance, I'll say, "If  

[18:28] you go abroad, do not post that you're away." And  I've got millions of followers, and I don't think   if we got robbed, I'd have much of a claim after  telling millions of people I wasn't in the house   for a week. If you know YouTubers as well, mate,  h then you'll know that when you go away, you kind  

[18:43] of need to do two weeks h worth of work in one  week. So, we have stuff constantly going out. As   I'm sure you can see, I'm a big James Bond fan.  I haven't had time to take the stuff down. Um,   and I did want to cover First Light. Uh, which,  yeah, was something I've been looking forward  

[18:57] to for quite a while. If you watch that video as  well, then you know we went to places like uh the   Aston Workshop to shoot with a DB5 and stuff. And  I of course also had to play the game. And I have   to say, mate, nothing makes me respect gamers more  than realizing they have to go through a 20our  

[19:11] thing while I get to watch a 2-hour movie. Anyway,  that took all the time up. Obviously, you know,   um we knew last year as well what the movie  slate was for this week uh when we booked the   trip and I picked this week cuz I had no idea what  Obsession and Back Rooms would and no idea they'd  

[19:26] be such big things and hey, neither did Lucas film  apparently. So, yeah, we will be doing an in-depth   video on Obsession when it releases digitally  and doing a more in-depth video on this one   when it comes out digitally as well. I'd also say  something like uh if you want to watch more videos  

[19:40] on back rooms then check out Colton at Screen  Crush. But uh it would actually help me out more   if you went there and clicked don't recommend  channel. So cheers for that mate. Do not tell   Colton I said that. But please drop a like on the  video and uh drop a comment with all your thoughts  

[19:53] below. And I know people another unanswered  question is do you have beef with screen crush?   No, we're good mates. It's a it's a bit it's a  banter. But yeah, go do that as well please. Um   and if you want to follow us on Instagram and see  my holiday picks then go and check us out at Heavy  

[20:06] every single week and for just 99 cents a month,  you'll get at least one big breakdown a week,   a week before anyone else. We also have our merch  store with our obsession shirt below just there.  

[20:18] Um, and a big discount of sales, too. Sales,  sales, sale. I feel like uh pirate clock right   now. But huge thank you for sitting through this  video. I've been your host Paul. You've been the   best. I'll see you next time. And this has been  the longest outro ever, but take care next time,