Backrooms Film and Linda Boronkay on the Emotional Power of Furniture

The horror film 'Backrooms,' directed by Kane Parsons, uses 1990s aesthetics and design to evoke a sense of liminal space and loneliness. The movie follows a furniture salesman through big-box warehouses, hotel corridors, and corporate offices, featuring beige carpeting, drop ceilings, fluorescent lights, and chunky pine furniture. While the outdated visual landscape was intended to trigger fear, the presence of overstuffed roll-arm sofas and chintz backgrounds provided a sense of comfort for the author. A conversation with London-based interior designer Linda Boronkay, featured on Monocle on Design, revealed that furniture and objects carry spiritual energy and memory, a concept she calls 'animism.' Boronkay, known for her characterful hotels including Osborn House in New South Wales, chooses objects based on aesthetic, material value, and energy. The author connects this to the film, noting that the scale of cavernous spaces unsettles more than individual objects, while furniture like ladder-back chairs and honey-oak cabinets evoke cosiness and family memories. The article argues that furniture can shape a space as much as architecture, and encourages readers to fill their homes with meaningful pieces. The film is now streaming and in select theatres worldwide.