The New New Wave Is Happening

STAR WARS kicked off this years’ summer blockbuster season with the franchise’s first new movie in 7 years and… no one cared?

Backrooms and Obsession, two small-budget films with minimal marketing, each outshined Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu at the domestic box office, but in hindsight it’s easy to understand Lucasfilm’s lackluster showing. Grogu aka “Baby Yoda” (no relation) was milked for every drop of his online virality at least 5 years ago, and the Disney machine has ensured there is never any shortage of new Star Wars stories.

I view this unusual box office upset as the latest event in a prevailing trend with theatrical audiences, which is not exactly a trend but more the beginning of a new cycle. The original Star Wars released in 1977 was itself part of an American New Wave of cinema where audiences rewarded artistically-driven films from new voices rather than the familiar studio-directed films of Old Hollywood.

Today, nearly fifty years and eleven films later, we’ve reached a remarkable point where a Star Wars premiere is itself unremarkable. Instead, Star Wars today more resembles the films of Old Hollywood—big-budget spectacles with familiar characters and a massive studio behind it to assure you this film is just like the last. 

Audiences are ready for the New New Wave: a new cycle of cinema with new stories by new artists. The Hollywood insurgent A24 Films has bet its business on the New New Wave and won at the box office time and time again, especially with their latest release Backrooms.

Review — 4 out of 5 stars

Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years A Slave, Doctor Strange) and Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value, The Worst Person In The World) lead this nostalgic psychological horror as a furniture store owner who passes through a mysterious doorway in his store basement and his extremely skeptical therapist who makes the same discovery.

First-time director Kane Parsons delivers genuine vicarious thrills which are elevated by engrossing performances from both leads that had me squirming in my seat but still wanting to know what’s around the next corner. The film’s third act is a major change-of-pace from the first hour which I found difficult to adjust. However, as the final act unfolds this world’s mysterious mythology, I was fascinated by the mindbending concepts explored regarding the meaning of time and reality itself.

Analysis — contains spoilers

Backrooms is a new kind of story.

While boasting some trappings and conventions of the horror genre (found footage, monsters, jump scares) the film has a unique pacing that pulls the viewer in by dangling their own curiosity before them. In my opinion, the most effective sequences of the movie were watching Clark and Mary each discover the backrooms for the first time. We experience in real-time as their curiosity overtakes their self-preservation, sending them deeper into the backrooms and simultaneously satisfying the curiosity of the viewer.

Watching this movie felt like playing a video game. Often when a film is compared to video games it’s meant disparagingly since many video games are repetitive, lack complex characters, and feature a threadbare story. But these assumptions are unfair because video games have been delivering quality cinematic experiences for decades.

Clark and Mary are our player characters and the dialogue makes the cutscenes. The real game starts when Clark sees that sign to the basement—perfectly illuminated to get our attention, just like a level in a video game designed to tell you where to go next. The backrooms are an open world, a challenge to the player to find the rewards hidden within. It’s almost as though we’re the ones controlling Clark and Mary, our very presence as an audience demands exploration.

The video game experience reaches its peak in the final action sequence, when the final boss is revealed and our character must survive. Mary runs through an endless maze of dark tunnels desperate to stay one inch ahead of the scary monster in pursuit. That’s a formative experience in any horror game.

The video game structure of this story elevates the film beyond voyeurism and allows us to live vicariously through Mary and Clark. It’s an immersive viewing experience that hits its peak whenever our characters discover new rooms, because that’s when we get to explore. Those are the shining moments of the film, due in large part to the brilliant production design of Danny Vermette (Longlegs, The Monkey). The conversations between the characters are interesting enough, but the true star of Backrooms is the backrooms.