"It's organic. It's some kind of... fungus?"
Kane took the concept of The Backrooms and amplified the Cosmic Horror elements prevalent in early Backrooms material. Combined with the implications of such a thing existing in our world, the end result is utter Nightmare Fuel.
- The whole aesthetic of Kane's take on the Backrooms has an eerily synthetic feel like the "backrooms" of a long-forgotten retail department store, with drywall corridors that meander nonsensically, inconsistent lighting, and the lighting humming loudly as a constant auditory companion, and curiously bare walls yellowed as if from age. Additionally, when you do see anything that suggests possible use - like beds, furniture, road signs - it's almost always glaringly off. It's either in a place that would make no sense to logically be - or, in Found Footage 2, the proportions simply make no sense like something out of Alice in Wonderland, creating the impression that the backrooms only superficially or incidentally resemble a place for humans.
- Little does our Found Footage camera guy realize, he is not alone and being stalked by wire-like entities (Bacterias) with vague motives.
- All we know about one of them is that one has the goal of pursuing any explorers while screaming like a demonic elephant. Additionally, multiple times during the chase, the Bacteria screams "Don't move!", "Wait!" and "Please don't! Don't go!" in a distorted voice, implying that they are fully aware of what's happening to them and are begging for help.
- While Pitfalls reveals that they are Voice Changelings, it seems unlikely that a victim would be saying these things. They'd realistically be expressing fear, not pleas for companionship.
- What makes them particularly frightening is that without intervening obstacles, you cannot shake off a Bacteria who is tracking you, by just running away, not without Olympic sprinter training at least. Finding a good hiding spot and staying still and silent presumably helps, but in a panic, that can be a tall order.
- You can't presume that a vertical drop will grant you reprive either. The pursuit in "(Found Footage)" was able to broken off this way, only for "Found Footage #2" to imply that this may not save you if the Bacteria is determined enough, making the Bacterias even more of a threat. In fact, dropping down unknown chutes that seem like escape routes can be risky due to the risk of being sent back to the real world in a dangerous spot such as high up in mid-air where one may end up falling to their death.
- The entity encounters across the series are uncommon enough that there's often a sense of suspense as to which episodes will feature them, making the periods when explorers are all alone, with just the environment, all the more tense. When we do get to see a Bacteria, the features give the sense of something vaguely humanoid, but retaining a sense of the unknown as if you don't really get to comprehend them like a corrupted NPC in a video game.
- When the camera guy in Found Footage falls into the chute after being pursued by the loud Bacteria entity, we get a view of a distorted-looking stairway with a kitchen to the right, and a closet and dark hallway to the left. What should be a comforting sight that resembles being invited over to someone's home can end up feeling creepy because it's too normal and it's so quiet and empty compared to earlier. Nothing bad happens in this zone yet this place might give off a sense of dread not quite like anywhere else. It's also notable that the Bacteria entity pursuing the camera guy doesn't try and follow him down (which they are capable of doing, as demonstrated in "Found Footage #2"). One may wonder exactly why the entity doesn't want to go down there. Is there an entity that's a threat to the Bacteria entity down there that the camera guy managed to miss?
- Missing Persons
implies one of the Backrooms victims is a two year old; to the parents it would appear their child just vanished without a trace. On top of that, the disappearances accelerated according to a line graph, increasing the cause for paranoia over more children, teens, and adults disappearing without warning. - Motion Detected details an experiment to set up motion-sensitive cameras. At one point, unknown and unseen banging sounds are captured and at the end of the video, the noodle-like appendages of an unknown entity appears off in the distance. We don't get a look at the full entity or any scares but it confirms that at least one entity is lurking around the testing site.
- Autopsy Report is extremely unsettling, from the appearance and physiology of the corpse, which appears to have only partially (and unevenly) decayed. But there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, where a snippet of some sort of report appears on a TV screen, that truly drives home that something is wrong with this space and fundamentally hostile to human life. We can't read all of it, but here's what we can:"And to that point, the sentiment... all serious engagements in the... this environment was never suited for mankind. To maintain this delusion would be to condemn...."
- Informational Video is a masterful use of Nothing Is Scarier. After the PSA video, we cut to ASYNC employees exploring the Backrooms. One employee splits off from the group when he hears a crowd muttering in an empty corner, asking if his colleagues can hear what he's hearing. Then the surroundings glitch, and his colleagues, (who didn't seem to acknowledge his shouts) suddenly disappear. Cue said employee wandering around, finding an empty theater with the shattered remains of something on the ground, and an entirely new maze with floral wallpaper. Said maze has an ax just lying around and a farmhouse with wheelbarrows that don't look quite right. He eventually stumbles upon the ASYNC entrance, only to find it empty and then the lights blare red. The video ends leaving the man's fate unknown. All throughout the video, you're expecting a jumpscare from one of the monsters crawling around in the Backrooms, but they never come. It isn't a mercy, since you're constantly holding your breath in dread. But there are no sudden scares beyond the one at the end. And the new rooms the man stumbles into just leave more questions that enhance the horrific mystique of the Backrooms.
- Pitfalls
- The person overseeing the threshold from a balcony gives of a G-man vibe as he mysteriously watches Marvin enter the portal. He's presumably a human boss or manager character with high-level clearance but the vagueness of this person's role can be just as creepy as Backrooms itself.
- And then there is the titular pitfalls with the nerve-wracking balancing act needed to get across the narrow beams around the grid-like pitfalls. Sure enough, Marvin falls down a chute due to a glitch in the level and is a little worse for wear.
- Marvin eventually finds a deceptive area that looks like it's outside and hears someone screaming for help in one of the out-of-place "homes." However, it's a ploy that lures our camera guy into an encounter with a Bacteria entity who is impersonating cries for help. The entity starts chasing, repeating the agonized yells they supposedly heard from someone else (their victim perhaps).Marvin: That is not a fucking person! (Flees for his life back the way he came.)
- This unlisted entry in the series is probably the most unsettling entry of all:
- Not just because of the strange and scratchy soundtrack (though that is disturbing in its own right), but also the implications that are built into it. First, the fact that an entire car no-clipped into the backrooms implies the possibility of multiple people disappearing simultaneously, and that there really is no knowing when or where you can no-clip into The Backrooms. There is only the possibility someone might end up there.
- Second, if one didn't notice before, the footage (assuming it isn't mirrored) appears to take place in a country that drives on the left side of the road, likely the UK, Australia, or New Zealand. Meaning that The Backrooms is a global phenomenon at this point.
- Another disturbing thing to consider is that this proves that it's not just obscure places you can clip through. Even public, regularly used places with lots of traffic can be clipped through.
- It also makes it scarier to consider what the person was going through while driving: Imagine having a rough day at work and that, at the least, you'll be able to finally get to relax at home, then, all of a sudden, you are flung into a completely different dimension while you drive. You don't know how you got there, only that you are now somewhere that isn't on Earth.
- A teaser picture shows the direct result of that incident: the car crushing itself into a wall the moment it enters the Backrooms.
- Even more scary is the fact that while you'd expect to see the driver either knocked out or dead in the driver's seat, they're not, implying either they and the car went to separate locations, or something took them from the wreckage.
- Another thing to note: While the car is wrecked from its high speed impact with the wall, the wall itself looks perfectly unscathed, suggesting the Backrooms is indestructible.
- Presentation:
- Despite what has been discovered about the Backrooms, ASYNC still wants to go through with commercializing "A-Space," as they call it, with the titular presentation showing massive benefits without mentioning any of the dangers of the space. Corporate greed and malfeasance will likely get a lot of people killed.
- More than that, they want people to live down there, in what are essentially windowless musty offices, even before any monsters or The Virus come into question. This raises the question as to who would willingly go to live in the Backrooms — but, it would be very easy to 'encourage' the desperately poor or the otherwise-homeless to take up residence there.
- The presentation shows a room with the dingy yellowed walls dressed up like an inviting home living room which can be subtly creepy. One might get the sense that even if safety is made reasonable, this space might affect one's sanity just due to the unnatural synthetic feel of the dimension.
- These living spaces also add possible context to Found Footage as the camera guy will find an abandoned living space in the future in September 1996. This might make one wonder if something terrible happened here which prompted the residents to evacuate, such as the omnipresent Bacteria menace. The level with the courtyard that resembles one found in the Holiday Inn Express at Heathrow Airport also appears to be one of these A-SPACE projects or something else but the sounds of unknown feral entities roaming the facility seem to imply this sector is unsafe for human presence. Even more troubling, this Holiday Inn Express is architecture that hasn't been built yet in the real world, as if a Time Crash is taking place.
- The subtle Existential Horror present in the graph comparing the amount of storage space on Earth to the projected volume available in "A-Space." The latter just keeps on growing and growing and growing, until the former becomes so small it can't even be seen anymore, giving an idea of just how unfathomably vast and unknowable the Backrooms really are.
- It's almost funny, but the fact that in ASYNC's idealistic animation of the Backrooms' possible future a housing area is built next to several fenced-off Bottomless Pits is more than a little concerning.
- We eventually find out what happened to the unfortunate camera operator from Instructional Video — he found his way back to the Threshold, only to find that three months had passed. While this is somewhat Nightmare Retardant considering that he's (probably) safe now, it makes you wonder how easy it might be for years, decades or centuries of real time to pass by while you're trapped in this awful place.
- Found Footage #2
- Another camera operator has discovered a glitch in reality and experiments with sending objects through the rift, á la Poltergeist (1982). Then it goes wrong while a tape measure is being inserted into the rift, causing the tape measurer to be suddenly sucked in, along with our main character and everything else, and falling into the Backrooms. This shows that, no matter how small the rift is to the Backrooms, if a person is tethered to an object, it will be sucked in regardless of size in relation to the hole. Those implications are downright horrifying, as it could mean that even stepping on a small rift could no-clip you.
- Even before the Bacteria encounter, the atmosphere is very tense in this iteration of the Backrooms. The camerawoman finds several strange things before discovering the car, such as a set of chairs and a table that appear stretched far beyond any human height, and a white, sterile hallway with music emanating from somewhere within. All the while, you're expecting something to jump out and attack the main character, but to no avail.
- One of the cars that no-clipped out of reality (possibly the same exact car from 9780415263573) is found, crashed into a wall. The driver has left a trail of blood into a house-like room implying medical horror from crash injuries. This leads to yet another Bacteria encounter and another chase sequence. This seems to confirm that Bacteria, at least some of them, were human beings, who transform after they die in the Backrooms. Also potentially crosses in Tear Jerker as it sounds like the Bacteria screaming "HELP ME!" implying that it's mimicking one of the last moments of the car driver, or it is them pleading for help. If the latter, it makes the entire situation both horrifying and depressing.
- The coherence of physics also appear to be unstable. While the Gravity Screw inside the hole in the floor was beneficial, there were anomalies that didn't necessarily feel reassuring like the green energy eruptions that ended the video feed onto the media. It might make one wonder if this reality is starting to come apart and what this might mean for reality outside the Backrooms.
- Reunion:
- The fate of the time traveling Peter Tench is revealed and his experience was a waking nightmare. After finding the Threshold 3 months into the future, he is denied rescue and a Corrupt Corporate Executive wants to continue the false cover story that he died in a car crash. Forced to survive in the Complex, he presses on with the knowledge that his family thinks he's dead and having been betrayed, he is on edge and presumably fears armed forces will return to hunt him down or capture him for study.
- This episode shows that bringing weapons into the Backrooms may not necessarily be the best course of action due to possible ambushes by stranded people. Viewers may be expecting an ambush by a bacteria and feel reassured that the team is armed, but that hope is dashed when the lost Peter Tench gets the drop on the team and the situation turns into a standoff when he grabs Mark's shotgun and turns it against him. Though Peter is relieved to see Marvin, he has already crossed the Despair Event Horizon due to being betrayed and left for dead to cover up knowledge of time anomalies in the Backrooms. Held at gunpoint, Mark panics and radios for armed support once the radio receives a transmission asking for status, and Mark declares that he is at gunpoint by a hostile which causes Peter to also panic, shoot him, and flee. It's also heart-wrenching seeing how desperate Peter is after he was informed that his family thinks he died and him having to hear that his coworkers attended his funeral for his forged death.
- Thanks to the events of Damage Control, we now know that even if on the off chance someone manages to find the doorway back to reality created by ASYNC; all they will be doing is trading one inescapable prison for another. Despite the dangers posed by the backrooms, they remain determined in their plans to commercialize the backrooms due to the infinite space it provides. As such, they’re not going to let someone who knows too much leak this information to the public. If someone is reported missing, they are going to stay missing.
