Edwin Heathcote on the architectural horror of Backrooms and Junkspace

Edwin Heathcote, architecture critic for the Financial Times, explores the cultural fascination with endless corporate spaces as seen in the A24 horror film Backrooms. The movie, based on YouTube shorts by 20-year-old Kane Parsons, depicts a nightmare labyrinth of generic, fluorescent-lit abandoned rooms. Heathcote traces the evolution of horror architecture from Victorian haunted houses to suburban malls and now to 'ghost malls' and liminal corporate interiors. He connects the film's aesthetic to Rem Koolhaas's 2001 essay 'Junkspace,' which describes the seamless, interior, endless expansion of modern built environments. The film's protagonist, architect Clark played by Chiwetel Ojiofor, navigates a maze of back-of-house spaces reminiscent of hotels and hospitals. Heathcote also references Will Wiles's novel The Way Inn, Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper. The original photo inspiring the series was taken at Rohner's Home Furnishings in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, during renovation in the early 2000s. Heathcote concludes that these endless spaces may represent the nightmare of modern work and surveillance, with humans as lab rats in an experiment.