Backrooms (2026)

Now that we're in the summer when You Tubers conquered cinema, I made a trip to the theater to see Backrooms. Directed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons, the film stars Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve. The story, based on a series of YouTube videos created by Parsons, explores the surreal realm of liminal space. Visually the film is often exciting, and the script by Parsons and his co-writer Will Soodik does a serviceable job of introducing the concepts of this oddly familiar but disorienting cinematic universe. 

Ejiofor stars as Clark, a former architect who now manages a furniture store. He voices his life frustrations (his wife recently left) to his therapist Mary (Reinsve). After a night of drinking Clark discovers he can walk through a wall inside the store and sees endless hallways of abandoned office space. There's also strewn furniture everywhere, but the images get increasingly unnerving, like blood on the carpet or strange graffiti on the walls. Some rooms look like a Salvador Dali painting. Clark becomes obsessed, and suspects something evil is happening, he confides in Mary, who eventually investigates the space herself. Then the film moves into more conventional horror territory.

The architecture of the liminal space is star of the film. Some parts also look like an M.C. Escher painting; one scene plays like a homage to Vertigo. The nightmare logic recalls David Lynch, especially Eraserhead. There's also a Twilight Zone vibe (especially "Little Girl Lost), or maybe Black Mirror is the appropriate reference. I viewed the hallways as a metaphor for anxiety, the sense of being trapped in an agitated state of mind and scrambling to find an exit. That's what works best about the concept, it's open to varying interpretations. 

I suspect Backrooms will become a major franchise. Track is clearly being built up for several sequels. That's not a criticism there's potential to take the story in all sorts of directions. I'm not sure we're witnessing something akin to the 1960s culture shocks of The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde, or the blockbuster totems of Jaws and Star Wars, but we are seeing young filmmakers engaging with the medium in ways that bring a sensibility not just honed by digital spaces, but with the vast history of cinema. 

***

Disclosure Day (2026)

Spielberg's greatest hits? Disclosure Day aims for the wonder of Close Encounters and the warmth of E.T. but also leans into the darker Sci-Fi of A.I. and Minority Report. The film weaves between chase sequences to quiet moments of fragile emotion.

The film's central premise is an intriguing one: What happens on the day we learn extraterrestrial life exists? After 80 years of endless UFO reports, accusations of coverups, and endless material for pop culture through the decades. Has the time arrived? There's an exhaustion with all the cultural mythology running through the film. Do people, outside of passionate fringe groups, even care about the UFO phenomenon anymore?

Critics will dismiss Disclosure Day as a 21st century film consumed with 20th century obsessions. The landing of the mothership in Close Encounters awed audiences in 1977 but will likely generate a collective meh from today's generation.

While the culture might've moved on from blockbuster spectacles, filmmaking still matters and Spielberg's incredible mastery of the medium is on display. We're in Spielberg land: lens flares, smooth camera movements, bluish sheens, lots of awestruck close ups. Watching characters monologue to John Williams cues is nostalgia itself. In one scene, Emily Blunt's character makes an emotional breakthrough, I can't imagine any other director handling it with more grace than Spielberg. 

The two leads in the cast are Josh O'Conner as an idealistic whistleblower and Emily Blunt as a newscaster who suddenly gains remarkable cognitive abilities. Colin Firth takes a villainous turn as a cover up artist for a mysterious corporation (echoes of Patrick McGoohan in Scanners). Colman Domingo is the spiritual center of the film, analogous to Francois Truffaut in Close Encounters.

The emotional highpoint arrives around the 2/3 point; the last section is a gesture towards spectacle. It's a tough call, the film definitely goes for wonder, but it falters into a popular mode from the analogue era. Contact (1997) engaged deeply with the humanistic questions of Extraterrestrial life, while Arrival (2016) focused on communication, Disclosure Day is ultimately a Sci-Fi thriller. Big questions are set aside, preference is given to the emotional journey. 

Like Close Encounters, the themes are humanistic. Empathy is front and center and channels a longing for human connection. Disclosure Day plays like a synthesis film, specifically in relation to E.T. and Close Encounters. The X-Files is also a major influence. Many other films have pondered the implications of discovering aliens, Disclosure Day is a story about the actual moment it happens. What would you do?

Spielberg knows how to take audiences for a ride; the journey is more important than the destination. We also see people connecting - the longing for transcendence is also a recurring theme. The film's journey is emotional, not intellectual - and unabashedly cinematic.