Backrooms - UNSETTLING, CREEPY HORROR! - Angry Movie Review

Overview

The video is an “Angry Movie Review” roundtable discussing A24’s Backrooms, focusing on how the film adapts the famous internet creepypasta/urban legend: the idea that if you “noclip” out of reality, you end up trapped in endless, ominous yellow office spaces.

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Main Plot (High Level)

• The story follows Clark, a furniture salesman, who accidentally ends up inside the Backrooms.
• Clark tries to approach the situation like a puzzle—learning the rules and lore—but things spiral.
• He ends up bringing others in (including an employee and her boyfriend), and the group becomes separated, chased, and mentally broken down.
• The film later shifts focus to Mary, a psychologist pulled into the nightmare.
  • At this point, the Backrooms’ “logic” becomes linked to trauma, memory, and misremembered copies of people.
• By the end, the group faces a monstrous “entity”/manifestation that:
  • traps bodies, and
  • distorts the mind, creating increasingly warped versions of reality and its people.

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What Stood Out (and What Didn’t)

What the Reviewers Praised

• Worldbuilding and environment
  • Multiple speakers agree the movie’s biggest strength is its creepy spaces, sound design, camera angles, and practical-set feel.
  • It’s described as making the ordinary feel terrifying—“exactly what it sounds like.”
• Slower, A24-style pacing
  • One host calls it artsy/cerebral and lore-heavy, arguing it rewards viewers who don’t need instant answers.
• The “explanation” (in spoilers)
  • Reviewers say the lore ultimately reframes the Backrooms as copies of subconscious/memories—a misremembered nightmare that persists and worsens with each repetition.
  • They describe it as clever and Lovecraft-adjacent in tone.

What Reviewers Disliked (or Felt Fell Apart)

• Third act / ending dissatisfaction
  • Several reviewers say the later sections get weird for weirdness’s sake or “fumble” in execution.
• Characters vs. setting
  • Even those who liked the movie say performances are “fine,” but you remember the Backrooms more than the people.
  • The character arcs are sometimes called generic, especially the therapy/trauma angle.
• Monster payoff criticism
  • The big reveal is criticized for not landing as scary enough.
  • Some wanted a different kind of entity—more cosmic/alien/ghostly—instead of the selected “pirate mascot”/malformed creature look.
• Too much happens off-screen
  • One reviewer notes a lack of clarity about how characters fully “go mad,” since key mental breakdown beats are skipped or only shown afterward.

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Jokes / Reactions / Notable Moments

• The hosts repeatedly roast the idea that YouTube horror creators keep producing the best scares (“YouTubers making all the best horrors, but it’s happening”).
• Multiple laughs come from the movie’s tonal shift into madness—described as becoming a “different movie” later on.
• A standout moment involves an argument over what the final monster really “deserves” to look like, and whether the effect is ridiculous vs. creepy.
• In the spoilers section, they enthusiastically dissect surreal visuals such as:
  • tables/cues,
  • background gore details,
  • warped rooms,
  • murals,
  • and the odd theatrical pacing of the revelations.
• They also repeatedly note that the Backrooms can differ for different people.

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Final Verdicts (Overall Consensus)

• Ratings generally cluster around the 6–8 range.
• Common sentiment:
  • Great first acts and atmosphere/worldbuilding,
  • but mixed or disappointing third act/ending, especially regarding the monster reveal and how answers are delivered.
• Despite criticisms, they still generally recommend watching it—either in theaters or as a must-watch A24 horror experience.

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Personalities Mentioned (Speakers)

• Angry Joe (main host)
• Joe (co-host / reviewer)
• Jay (fills in while Alex is away)
• Alex (mentioned as absent on vacation)