Backrooms and the Fear of Being Alone
Based on a viral 2022 YouTube video of the same name (and an even earlier meme), A24’s latest horror film, Backrooms, has taken the world by storm. Directed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons (making me, once again, a proud card-carrying member of Gen Z), the film has already made over $200M internationally on just a $10M budget, making it A24’s highest grossing film to date. Something about the unsettling film has resonated with audiences.
I love Backrooms. I saw the film opening night, over two weeks ago, and it still pops in my mind at least three times a day. The vomit-colored wallpaper, the horrible flickering sound of the lights, the eerie liminal setting… it’s the perfect recipe for a psychological horror film. What makes it so truly terrifying, however, is not only the monster that you can never quite catch a glimpse of — it is the suffocating feeling of being completely and utterly alone.
In the film, no one else is in the backrooms; only you and whoever you bring in there. Even if someone else manages to find an entrance, the structure is so massive and all-encompassing that it is nearly impossible to find anyone other than the monster that haunts its halls. It’s difficult to explain how lonely this viewing experience is to someone who hasn’t seen the film or experienced the isolation themselves. As characters in the film muse, “it’s like trying to describe a dog to someone who’s never seen one and then asking them to draw it.”
I’ll be honest. It was difficult to draw any Gospel parallels to this story while experiencing it. But after processing the film and its thought-provoking messages, one thing became abundantly clear: there is nothing more horrifying than utter isolation, and nothing more beautiful than the presence of a loving and faithful God.
Loneliness and isolation are dangerous, a slippery slope that leads to hopelessness which can result in utter despair. In fact, research has found that prolonged loneliness actually takes as serious a toll on the body as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. We were not created to be alone.
Lonely isolation is a place no one wishes to be, but it becomes much easier to fall into if we are not reminded of God’s promised truths (Joshua 1:9, Isaiah 21:10, Psalm 23:4, etc.). Perhaps the most famous is Matthew 28:20, as Jesus tells His disciples, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Nothing is more comforting than knowing your Lord and Savior, the one who created you, chose you, and calls you Beloved, has never once left your side and never will. This fact disintegrates fear. Even if we were stuck in the backrooms (one of the scariest fictional places ever created), we would have nothing to fear because we would not be alone. As David wrote, “If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!” (Psalm 139:8). There is nowhere too remote, too isolated, or too solitary that God’s presence is not already there. No, not even in the backrooms.
