With each passing day this shines a little bit brighter. I had a bad time in the theater because I was led to believe, through advertising, that it was something that it wasn’t.

Having since read more about the Brazilian film industry of the 70s and 80s, I think I can better appreciate what it’s doing within its own context. I just wish I’d gotten that context sooner.

Even still, in the theater, there were two visually breath-taking sequences: Rita’s drug induced hallucination + come-down, and Marcelo’s walk down the highway in the leather mini-skirt, that stick out as inspired choices in a sex-comedy.

There’s some minimal sensuous pleasure of watching people interact with the tactility of the backrooms. But ultimately the film is weightless.

This was likely doomed from the start. Parsons’ “The Backrooms” series, like its creepypasta cousin Petscop, operates primarily in the realm of lore. Lore here is the simulation of depth through the assemblage of details. What I care about is the sensuous experience of watching and/or story that communicates something otherwise ineffable. This can’t muster much of either. Meanwhile fans online clamor about “canon”. It knows its audience.