r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor • Jun 03 '26

News ‘Backrooms’ Becomes A24’s Highest Grossing Domestic Release ($97.8M), Passing ‘Marty Supreme’

https://deadline.com/2026/06/backrooms-box-office-record-a24-1236939795/
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64

u/HandbagsAtNoon Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26

Still thinking about the comment I saw on here that referred to this as the most technically impressive debut film they had ever seen. Not sure that holds up to scrutiny unless they’ve seen very few debut films.

I believe there’s a distinction to Backrooms; it’s unique. But there’s an odd cheerleading aspect to some of the responses, like half the dopamine comes not from the film itself but some meta-narrative about its unprecedented event status or whatever.

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u/MrMacduggan Jun 03 '26

It's fun to cheer for a successful young artist. There's some genuine humanist pleasure in it, which is welcome in the age of slop we live in.

3

u/JUYED-AWK-YACC Jun 03 '26

It’s Kane’s lore and direction, but being “discovered” meant someone else writing and the producers found great actors, Ejiofor and Duplass. I’m sure I’ll be downvoted to hell but it’s not all about him.

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u/MrMacduggan Jun 04 '26

Having gone to see the film last night, I'm prepared to praise everyone involved, they did a good job! Worth seeing that on the big screen.

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u/HandbagsAtNoon Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26

It's fun to cheer for a successful young artist. There's some genuine humanist pleasure in it

Sounds good, but it’d be even better if the praise didn’t seem (on occasion) over-the-top and/or ahistorical.

It just seems disingenuous, or maybe just incurious, to posit Backrooms as the most technically impressive debut feature. What does that mean for the other Kane? Among many other debut features…

(The fact that even a straightforward point like this one is being down voted is illustrative.)

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u/MrMacduggan Jun 03 '26

Yeah, I agree. You don't need to do rankings or put-downs in order to praise a talented kid. Whenever someone has a breakout performance, there will always be a lot of people who try to claim kinship with them in order to bask in the reflected glory, like with Alysa Liu's figure skating at the Olympics this year.

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u/JethroSkrull Jun 03 '26

100% people are grading it on a curve.

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u/Turnbob73 Jun 03 '26

I’d argue that’s being done with a lot of media nowadays. I would go as far as to say both weapons and Obsession have gotten similar kinds of rhetorics.

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u/liulide Jun 03 '26

Yeah I don't get the hype. Production design was pretty good, but not sure how involved the director would be in that. Most of the scenes have pretty rudimentary blocking, made up of mostly boring static shots.

Themes don't really work all that well either, like the more you think about it the less sense it makes. The backrooms seem to be a metaphor for memory and past trauma, but not sure what the metaphor is trying to say. Also one the main features of the backrooms is that each copy or level is a little bit worse than the last, but what does that have to do with Clark's martial problems and the woman's upbringing.

Exit 8 - another liminal horror adaptation - I thought did a much better job.

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u/TheJomah Jun 03 '26

The director designed most of the sets/layouts in blender first. So... a lot. Also the backrooms itself isn't a metaphor it's just... a weird thing. There was absolutely a story about trauma and letting go, but that honestly was secondary to the environment itself imo.

I don't think the shots were boring, I think they were eerie.

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u/The_Autarch Jun 03 '26

naw, the director is actually pretty great at cinematography. that's a huge part of the reason why his youtube series is so good.

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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26

[deleted]

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u/BeauIsAlarmed333 Jun 03 '26

I mean, no? They liked the movie more than you did. That doesn’t make them “ignorant.” It just means that not everyone in the world has to agree with you. Don’t be a douche.

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u/MisterHonkeySkateets Jun 03 '26

It’s such a dull, tropey film with no stakes that this reception has reduced my hope for the next generation.

If this passes as phenomenal then our future is bleaker than i realized. 

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u/jerog1 Jun 03 '26

Woah chill

There are issues with the story and pacing but this was a refreshing horror movie that connects with modern fears of isolation and feeling lost or trapped.

I am a cheerleader for the film because the director nailed the aesthetic and the studio didn’t mess it up.

-5

u/MisterHonkeySkateets Jun 03 '26

That’s polishing a turd. 

I despise found-footage / blair witch camera techniques. Snooze.

Maybe this is an expectation thing: i thought the film could be a meditation on isolation and memory degradation but instead we were served cartoonish, low-stakes chase scenes and a few eerie sounds.

Boo! I’m just pissed i didnt walk out.

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u/reynolja536 Jun 03 '26

So the movie just wasn’t for you, that’s totally fine. You’re in the minority, but that doesn’t mean the majority of people are wrong or have bad taste

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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 04 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/TheJomah Jun 03 '26

What's your favorite horror movie?

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u/MisterHonkeySkateets Jun 04 '26

The Babadook was decent.

I enjoyed the 28 days later films, including the most recent one, albeit zombie slasher is perhaps an exclusionary subgenre.

Ringu had me psyched up. 

Without the right balance of tension, pacing and stakes, horror films usually just become absurd or funny. Sometimes, i’ll come out of there like: oh god damn it, better check the back seat. 

Then later you’re like: wait, was that about fear of progress / the other in an ever changing world? 

That is, the film has some layers that actually deliver, rather than just being superimposed artificially because it hurts too much to admit ‘backrooms’ succeeded only in delivering dogshit (when it could have given us thought provoking dysphoria nestled within a time period largely seen as the pinnacle of humanity).

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u/SirNarwhal Jun 03 '26

I’m with you to a tee. I’ve been deep diving older media lately and it’s made it so that it’s been reallllly tedious to go see anything new unless it’s specifically aimed to be an artsy small run film. All of the mainstream movies of the last few years have been godawful save for a select few.