- Directed by: Kane Parsons
- Written by: Will Soodik, Kane Parsons
- Stars: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 50 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VMUIjiXQ9E
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
The IMDB.com description says “When a counselor’s client vanishes into a surreal realm of infinite corridors, she is forced to journey into the abyss to bring him back.” But it’s more complicated than that with infinite layers of weirdness. Which is the backrooms, which is the real world, and which is just distorted memories?
It’s a very strange film, and we both liked it.
Spoilery Synopsis
It’s 1990, and we open on a guy filming inside an empty set of rooms. He stops in a room full of radio equipment, and he reports that he’s never been this far before, and he really wants someone to come and get him.
As he continues, we see that birds, leaves, and nature have somehow intruded into the hallway, and various pieces of furniture are embedded into the walls. Then something jumps out and kills the guy. The video ends, and the credits roll.
We get a voiceover about making the same mistakes over and over again, and we see Clark coming to work at Cap’n Clark’s Ottoman Empire, a furniture store. “Rip Off” is painted in the window, and he’s got a bunch of past due bills on his desk.
Clark talks to his therapist, Mary, about his sad life. He talks about the night Barbara left him. He’s a little bitter about his career.
Kat and Bobby record Clark doing a really bad pirate commercial. The electric bill is higher than it should be, so he calls in an electrician to find out why. There’s a whole bunch of power being used, but not for the store. That night, we see that Clark now lives in the store, and there are still electrical problems at night.
A light comes on the downstairs area, so Clark goes down to shut it all off, except it won’t shut down. When it does finally shut off, he notices a light behind one of the walls; a secret door? He leans on the wall and goes right through, into a large yellow room with buzzing fluorescent lights. The portal seems to work both ways, so he starts to explore a bit.
He walks through the place, a lot larger than it appears, until he comes to a stop sign in a dark place. He skips that and goes a different direction. He finds a dead bird and more rooms.
He eventually finds a backpack behind a hidden door hiding a tunnel. On the other side, he finds various shoes embedded in the floor. He hears something weird moving around in the tunnels and runs back to the first room, where he started. The portal is still there, so he goes back to his own world.
We see that someone has a video camera in the backrooms and knows that Clark was there.
Clark goes to see Mary for another session. He’s agitated about what he’s found and sounds like a lunatic.
Clark has Kat and Buddy come back in with the video recorder. He shows them the door, drawn on the wall, and they think he’s insane– until it works. He then shows them around the huge place. Kat’s terrified of the whole place, but Buddy is as curious as Clark is. Bobby goes down into a kind of pit and sees someone down there– pulls him back in and does something bad to him.
We cut to Mary, a little girl who’s not allowed to go outside. “They’re all over the place,” warns her mother. Then adult Mary wakes up. She gets a cryptic call from Clark that he won’t be coming back. She goes to the furniture store to look around; it’s unlocked and has been for days, but no customers ever come here. She goes downstairs and sees the door outline on the wall.
Soon, Mary is in the yellow room. As with the others, she starts wandering around the place. She finds Clark, who grabs her and chokes her out.
Mary then flashes back to her weird childhood and insane mother. Clark explains the weird people that are in these room; it’s sorta-kinda how the room remembers them, just not quite right. Everything here is just a little bit mis-remembered. The poorly recreated people, as it turns out, are edible, since they’re full of food.
Mary wants to help Clark, psychologically, but he’s got some special needs. He’s gone pretty much insane, and makes Mary wear his wife-stand-in’s hair. Mary gets annoyed and says Clark’s problem is all the whining. He likes it in here. “For the first time in a long while, I feel like I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”
Suddenly, a giant pirate lumbers into the room, and Clark says Mary was just leaving. The huge thing takes a bite out of Clark, and Mray runs away. The creature pursues her until she finds a trap door in the ceiling and gets back into the actual furniture store. Except it’s not really the store, it’s just more of the same, and the big pirate is still there. Somehow, she gets to another room with men in hazmat suits who gas her into unconsciousness.
Now, Mary’s in some kind of endless hospital/lab, and there are lots of scientists there. Eventually, a guy named Phil comes in. He wants to know how she got in here. He’s been exploring the place for a very long time, and he knows it’s all super important.
… And that’s all.
Brian’s Commentary
“Furniture Store: The Movie”
The whole “backroom/liminal spaces” thing on Reddit never made any sense to me, so I didn’t expect much going into this. I was expecting something like “Skinamarink” only with bigger sets.
Turns out, there’s a whole story here, with acting and everything. The sets are really well done, and it all looks like it’d be a fun place to explore– until it’s not.
I was thoroughly entertained, but the ending was just out of nowhere and too abrupt. I didn’t expect there to be an explanation, but the story just basically stops.
Overall, it was far better than I expected. I liked it!
Kevin’s Commentary
Just think of all the money you could make harvesting furniture, electronics, and oddities out of The Backrooms and selling them on eBay.
I agree with Brian that it was much more entertaining than I expected. But I’m not sure it was worth the hype. I liked it; I didn’t love it.
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