We have been in the back rooms before

There’s a lot of excitement surrounding horror this summer.

Obsession beat out The Mandalorian at the box office this week, which is pretty impressive for a small-budget horror flick. But another movie being released this weekend is generating plenty of excitement too: The Backrooms.

For those who know the lore, The Backrooms centers around a seemingly endless series of liminal spaces that terrify the people who find themselves trapped within them. Some fans prefer the monster aspect of the mythology. Others prefer the emptiness and the void, it makes you sense that something might be lurking just beyond the corner of that yellow hallway.

The Backrooms lore really began around 2019 when someone posted an image on a 4chan message board. The picture itself was rather ordinary, showing the back portion of a retail space from 2002. At first it went largely unnoticed. Then it was reposted with an anonymous comment warning people to be careful because they could accidentally “noclip” out of reality and find themselves trapped in the Backrooms with no way out. The post described the smell of old, moldy carpet and the constant hum of fluorescent lights.

From that point the mythology expanded. Monsters were introduced. Different levels were created. Entire storylines emerged. Fan fiction took on a life of its own and eventually evolved into one of the most successful horror concepts of the internet age.

Immediately, people knew exactly what it felt like.

Because we’ve all been there before.

The liminal horror aspect of the Backrooms could probably be studied by psychologists. Why is a yellow room with no windows and nothing but fluorescent lights so unsettling? Why does an empty hallway bother us more than a monster sometimes does?

Generations that grew up with the internet have embraced the concept, but older generations seem fascinated by it as well. And that got me thinking during one of those long drives home after a tiring Friday and too many hours spent at work.

It made me contemplate the Backrooms of my own life.

As someone who witnessed the Coal Region during its better days and then watched parts of it slowly decline, I think many of us have spent time in our own version of the Backrooms.

We’ve seen retail stores close.

We’ve watched malls shutter.

We’ve seen photographs of a Kmart or Sears for the very last time with only a handful of clothing racks remaining on the sales floor.
The Backrooms are often inhabited by a Spirit Halloween these days, but before we get the Spirit, we lose the spirit.

We’ve watched churches close and sit vacant. School buildings become abandoned. Hospitals fall silent. The former Ashland State Hospital, whose photographs frequently circulate online, certainly has a Backrooms quality to it.

And quite frankly, the entire town of Centralia became a Backroom.

In my childhood, I distinctly remember vacant homes. Moldy carpets. Empty rooms. Streets where people had already moved away and were waiting for the inevitable demolition of what remained.

There are two poignant photos in the book SLOW BURN, pictures were taken by Renee Jacobs, that are very haunting and back rooms-ish.. Though black and white, you can sense the emptiness of these homes prior to demolition. You can almost smell the mildew in carpets.. the hum of a the light.. the sadness of the room without personal effects..

I remember Saint Ignatius Church after much of its life had already left it, before its eventual demolition. Being in that place either empty or at night were equally unsettling concepts..

I recall being in several soon to be knocked down places in Centralia.. the problem was I was a child so memories are fuzzy. As fuzzy as the light in the rooms… they smelled damp. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead.. homes or businesses being emptied during the mine fire years all had the same feels during that time. A place caught in that strange period between being occupied and being destroyed.

And I think that’s why the Backrooms resonate with so many people.

A lot of the people who lived in Centralia watched their own lives become Backrooms. They watched vacancy take over places that were once filled with laughter, family dinners, holiday gatherings, and everyday life. The furniture would be removed and photographs would come off the walls. The rooms would sit empty for a while before the bulldozers arrived to erase what remained.

The Backrooms are strange because they feel permanent.

But they’re not. As a matter of fact, they’re entirely temporary, just like we are.

We tend to think of life as the front rooms, the places where the smiles happen and the memories are made. But deep down we know we’ve all walked through the Backrooms too.

Whether it was the forgotten hallways of a former Catholic school, a moldy borough hall, an abandoned department store, a vacant hospital wing, or an empty house waiting for demolition, we’ve all encountered places caught between what they once were and what they are about to become.

That’s what makes the Backrooms unsettling.

It is not the monsters or the demons, or even the possibility of being trapped in a endless maze of rooms..

It’s the realization that we’ve been there before, stood in rooms where life once happened, and have seen places waiting for their final chapter.

And perhaps what unsettles us most is that those rooms are reminders that everything is temporary. The fluorescent lights buzz for a little while longer. The carpet slowly gathers dust while the building waits.. then one day the buzzing lights turn off for good..

PS.. at least I got to play an Alma Mater in a real life back room .. 🙂