Too Scary; Didn't Watch - BACKROOMS

Episode Date: June 3, 2026

Movie Intro @ 11:40Trivia @ 16:13Recap starts @ 29:00TrailerSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a headgum podcast. This is Emily, Henley, and Sammy. And you're listening to Too Scary Didn't Watch. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Too Scary Didn't Watch, the horror movie recap podcast for those too scared to watch themselves. I'm Henley, and I'm too scared to watch scary movies, except not today. Not today. I'm Sammy, and I love watching scary movies, and so I watch them so that you don't have to.

And we are missing Emily just for this little. intro part, she will magically appear for the recap. So frets not. But just Henley and I checking in today, you can jump straight to the recap if you'd like. But first, Henley, did anything scary happen to you this week? Well, the scary thing is that I'm finally reading Lonesome Dove. I don't know what this is. Should I know this? It's just a classic Western that is, that is recently back in the zeitgeist for some reason. It came out in 1985. But I have been wanting to read it for a couple of years at recommendation from someone. But I've picked it up like three times and I've never really been able to get into it. But then I found a trick. And this is the trick that I want to

share with everyone. You have to cast the characters properly. First of all, Lonesome Dove is basically like watching a boy movie. You're watching a boy movie. You're watching a movie that a boy would like. and it has to have classic boy actors. So we're talking, you know, Tommy Lee Jones, Benicio del Toro, like that kind of vibe. You're thinking, you know, Paul Thomas Anderson, Quentin Tarantino type of casting. And once I, and I'm not going to tell you, because it's to each his own, to each his own, I'm not going to cast it for you. But I'm just giving that little like nudge because once I did that, I am rip-boring ready to go. So you know, Henley, Tommy Lee Jones isn't the...

Oh, he's in the original. Yes, yes. I think that's probably one reason why I... Was like, you cast it really perfectly there. Yes, yes, no. I subconsciously knew that. I have not seen that. I guess it's a TV series?

It was like a mini TV series. I want them to act. I want them to do it again, though, because I think that's from like 1989 or something when they did the TV series. It is. 1989, exactly. Wow, you sure know your lonesome dove history. But anyway, I really.

It's a good summer book. So if anyone's looking for like a long read this summer and you want that vibe, I'm really enjoying it. It's really like, it's sweet. It's just a bunch of men, you know, who love each other. There's friendship. That's nice. There's friendship.

They're joshing each other all the time. There's the coming of age stuff. There's, it's not my typical, my typical type of book. So I'm also. Yeah, I don't know that I've ever read a Western. I don't think I have. This is my first time. Read all quiet on the Western front, not a Western.

I've never read that. But yeah, anyway, so I don't know. I finally figured out that's my trick for Lonesome Dove. The scary thing is that I'm finally reading it, I guess. God, really had to shrewthorn that in there. It's funny you should say because I had recently similarly picked up fates and furies, which I have also tried to read multiple times and never really make it past the first couple chapters. Is that when they're having sex in the sand dunes is like the first, the very first thing that happens?

Yes, yes. And then you're like, why isn't the whole book just them having sex on the sand dunes? Honestly, I think the first few times I read it, I hadn't been enough of a read. It's not an easy book. It's like very specifically kind of beautifully written, but like in a difficult way. And I think probably the first few times I read it, I'm like, I don't want to do this. This is too hard. But I'm trying to stick with it for the challenge this time.

And I will try your trick of casting them properly. Properly. Because yeah, maybe that will help. I usually like, I have like images of the character. in my brains, but they usually don't have faces. I'm usually like, it's kind of like faceless, just general vibe of people. I feel like she's like a Mackenzie Davis. Yeah. He's, I don't know who he is. I don't know. He's kind of like slantz a lot. He's like a little sloppy. Yeah, I guess I don't know them enough yet to cast them, but I'll do, I can always recast. You can always recast. We'll fix it in

post. What about you? Well, my scary thing. is also a bit shoehorned in, but I've been working a lot, as you know. I know, Sammy. And scary to just be at a desk 40 hours a week, I think that's a pretty, pretty spooky thought in general. Really bad for you. Lots of studies have been done about how it just lowers your lifespan and all that. And this week, I had also taken some Vivance. I don't always take my ADHD medication because it's complicated. You know, there's pros and cons. But one thing that it does do is really help me get my work done. Yeah. But a con is that I tense every muscle in my neck and shoulders. And so this week in particular, I have been like hunched over my desk just like flexing

like the keyboard in the mouse. And I'm so sore now. My spine hurts. Like I feel like I've just compressed my spine. And I, I woke up this morning being like, I need to hang upside down. And there's nowhere to do that. Where can I do? do that. In my parents' house. My dad, my dad has. Jenna's dad also has this. I like, I need the dad gear. The thing is, it takes up so much room. Yes. Because it's like literally a seesaw. Yeah. A seesaw. You put your whole body on. But my dad has one of these that you just hang, you will like, yeah, literally just hangs hangs you upside down. Yeah. I was really like, but they should have one of those like at the gym or something. Yeah. Like, why isn't that at the gym?

I could go to like a child's park and hang on the like monkey bars. Yeah. But I'm also like scared to get into that. Like I'd have to like flip myself upside. I need my core strength to get into a hanging position. Like yeah, there's a few of those little random like kind of public gym equipment things sporadically sprinkled around the city. There's one in Frogtown like on the biopium. like on the bike path where it's just like a little like a bar area of gym equipment.

I don't know if there's a bar there. There's like an elliptical, like a weird little elliptical. So I was like maybe I could go check that place out. But again, like with the monkey bar style, like I'm scared to get into that in a way that I can hang upside down. I don't know if that would even work because I think your body would still be so tense from You need a way to relax while hanging upside down. Yeah, that's a good point.

You need, what do you need? You need Duncan to do the monkey bars too. And then you just get on top of Duncan and Duncan supports your entire body weight so you can relax while also hanging upside down. Or you can just hold my feet. Yeah, Duncan can hold your feet. But then you're still having the problem of having to like use your core strength to basically like, I don't know. there's something about being supported still while being upside down. Yeah.

I think, yeah, this just set, not spiraling, but sent me down an interesting, like, thought experiment of how I could even accomplish this. Yeah, like, why is this not available to everyone? Because it's really good for your spine to hang upside down, not for like long periods of time. But there's a reason why the dad equipment exists because maybe Duncan could you, all right, So you need to find a cliff. Here we go. And now we're talking.

We need to find a tall wall. A tall wall. Something that you would see in the back rooms. And then you can just put your feet on the ledge, the horizontal. And then you can put your knees will go down here. And then the wall will support you this way. And then Duncan can hold onto your feet so that you don't fall off the cliff. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah. This is just this is this is this is not easy. I want this to be easy. And this goes also into, uh, what we'll talk about later in the episode of just needing a place to scream. Like I also need a place to hang upside down. Mm-hmm. So maybe this is a new million dollar idea where there's a screaming box with an optional

hang upside down. Inverted, inverted option. None of these sound like, um, they would attract serial kill. at all. Maybe I'm going to have to buy one of these fucking hang upside down things. I have a garage now since I've moved. So that seems like a perfect thing to have in the garage. Don't you feel like that's something you would find on Facebook marketplace for like $10?

Yes. Yes. That's a great point. I feel like during COVID I bought a rowing machine. Oh, yes. And it was also like took up so much space in my tiny apartment at the time and very quickly resold. resold that.

I wasn't hip to Facebook Marketplace at the time. I used some other app. Let go. All right. But yeah, it sold right away. They're going like hotcakes, just passing around the city as people buy them and then decide they hate them. I'm literally going to do that.

I'm literally going to check Facebook Marketplace for a hang upside down machine, which is I'm sure what they're called hang upside down machine. Yeah. How do you even search for that? I just feel like it would feel really. really good and I want it and I need it. I want, now that you're saying it, I want to do it. It feels like nothing else will suffice. It feels like that's the only way that I'll feel better. Yeah, it might be. And it's just a little scary that I don't have one. Can't kind of easily make that happen for myself.

Something so simple. It's like just my body, I just want it upside down. Yeah. You would think it would be easier to do that. Why is it so hard? I don't know. I was like, can I hang off the side of the bed? It's not high enough. I don't know. So we're going to have to workshop that. We'll workshop it. I keep you posted. But pretty scary stuff.

But the other scary thing for this week, Henley and I both got a little scared. Because today we are talking about back rooms in theaters right now directed by Kane Parsons, written. by Will Sudec and Kane Parsons, starring Chewettel Egya for Renata Reinsfa, Lukita Maxwell, Finn Bennett, and Mark Duplas. And you better believe all those pronunciations were absolutely perfect. I thought so. Yeah, in theaters now. Henley and I both saw this movie.

Loved it. Wild stuff. Loved every second of it. And you did see it also, like, early at screenings. Yeah, we did see it weeks ago. We thought it's not exactly fresh in our minds, but we're going to do our best. I'm really excited about this. I'm also like, what a moment.

What a moment horror is having. This is set to be an absolutely massive opening after like crazy huge gangbusters weeks for obsession. Like, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. It's just so random. It's in like May. And turns out summer. Summer block, horror are the new summer blockbusters.

Horror are the new summer blockbusters. You heard it first. But I wish that they would do it in summer. And not in April or May. Sure. Sure. You know, you got to roll with the punches, huh. I know.

I'm trying to roll with the punches. Try to roll with them. I know. It's like we got a little spring chella. Spring chella. Cochella. Oh, it's a little cocella, spring chella. Yeah.

Beberchella. Yeah, that's what it is. A little beber chella. A little bea chella. I saw a video of someone's husband's dressing up like Justin Bieber and putting on their own personal Biebercella on their porch. And it was really funny because they were just wearing like, sweatshirts and like long socks and they look exactly like Justin Bieber.

Like they're just bending over the laptop, like singing into the microphone. I'm like I can't tell the difference. He looks exactly like Justin Bieber to me. Incredible. I remember when you were Justin Bieber, Henley? Yes. And everyone thought that I was a backyard barbecue dad. Well, because someone else at the party was backyard barbecue dad.

And we were just the same way. Who came up with it would be like, oh, the classic Halloween costume backyard barbecue dad. You got your ghost, your witch, your backyard barbecue dad. Yeah, yeah. You looked great that year. He looked really good. That's fun. You were Mandy.

You were, right? Jenna was Mandy. I was Nicholas Cage. Emily, what were you? I was going through it personally. Right. So I think that my costume was maybe a little phoned in. Minimal that year.

Got it. But I had fun at that party. I had fun at that party. I remember feeling like the ugliest I've ever felt in that costume. I was like, wow, I really made myself feel ugly this time. Maybe I should try a Halloween where I like feel good about myself for once. I've told you guys this, but it really does make me laugh every time. The time that I was a crazy cat lady for Halloween and I started crying at the end of the night

because I was like, it's too real. We should dress up as your own personal deepest fear. I just walk around a party. regular clothes going, Joel's dead. What's your costume? My costume is my husband's dead. My costume is grief. And I'm very, very upset.

Oh, God. Do real. Honestly, even just saying that as a joke, I'm like, I take it back. I fucking take it back. Don't listen to our universe. Don't listen. Close your eyes. No, I have no power.

I have no power. That's one thing we know for sure. For sure. But back rooms. Backrooms. I just have to say, I went to the world premiere of this movie, which feels worth bragging about. So I saw the whole cast and let me tell you, they're absolutely stunning. Yeah, I believe it.

And yeah, it was really cool. So I just wanted to brag and I don't have anything else to say about it. No, that's worth bragging about. I actually did get a little stressed because as we've gone to other screenings that are like basically empty, like one or two other people there. And that's kind of, I kind of prefer that vibe. And so at the world premiere, I was like sensory overload. Like a Heim sister was there. And I like Osgood Perkins was there.

And I just was turning and being like, what the fuck, what the fuck? I just am like, I need to watch this movie. Because also you can't really take notes in that situation. No. You've just got to remember it all. I could barely focus on the movie because there is too many noises. Too many celebrities. Yeah.

Too many celebrities afoot. Yeah. Backrooms has an 89% on Ron. Tomatoes, a 76% on Metacritic and a 7.2 on IMDB. Solid. Solid is exactly what I was going to say. Oh, my God. What the fuck?

That's crazy. I was going to say that. Are you in my head? The budget was 10 million, and even this is shocking. So far, it's made 38.4 million. And this has been out for two days. It's set to make like, I think Joel said it's like on track to make like 80 million opening weekend. Jesus Christ.

These movies are, something is happening. What the fuck is going on? I think it's like Gen Z is going off right now. And it's also like internet culture. Yes. I'm honestly shocked to learn is still a thing. The gold screen. Not the silver screen.

Yeah, and YouTube culture. It's YouTube culture. Joel text me, he was like, what color is a movie theater screen when the movie's not playing? And I was like, fucking excuse me, not silver. You're going to tell me that's, oh, shiny silver? Fucking ridiculous. Oh, my God, the glisten of the silver screen.

I think people are just thirsting for horror. They want contained unrealist, not real horror, as opposed to the daily horror of our daily lives. It does. I mean, we've talked about that before, but it's like a little release for the stress of everyday life. Communal experience. We also are like very desperate for communal experiences. Also getting to like go into a little room and maybe scream. Yeah. Yeah. That's like my million dollar idea is a little scream box. So this is horror movies can be that. They can be that. And that's what we need right now. Places to scream. I just want to be able to scream. Some trivia for us. I feel like most people,

probably know this because it's so buzzy, but this is also based on a YouTube series by Kane Parsons. We talked about this a little bit in the obsession episode, I think, but this was apparently like a YouTube sensation at the time. This was during COVID that these YouTube

like episodes were coming out that were I don't know, again, internet culture is so foreign to all of us. So we're going to fuck this up and I don't really understand it. But I guess it originated on 4chan and then it's like started as a picture. And then started as like a meme. It's a meme.

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Which I'll be honest. I still don't entirely know what a meme is. I feel, it makes me feel very old to talk about. Started as a meme on 4chan and now it's a movie. But that's, Yeah. That's the truth.

That's the truth. That's what happened. And it was like exploring this liminal spaces, creepy, empty rooms, which I could see how that would really be a hit during COVID. It kind of feels like, yeah, I mean, I feel like I've had nightmares before, not knowing what this movie is entirely about, but like you have nightmares where you're like in a weird space. Mm-hmm. And you're like, I feel like I should know what this is, but I don't. And I don't know where I think. Like, it is like so scary. Yes.

Nothing even has to happen. Jenna, silent Jenna, shout out. We haven't talked about her in a long time. But she has a recurring dream of finding another room in her house as well. And I feel like it's kind of that sort of vibe. Also, it's so, like, user-generated. I think that's the other thing that's so unique about it is that, like, on the subreddits, there's, like, a subreddit for back.

rooms and then there's subredits for like creepy pasta and stuff like that where yeah yeah pasta is a term that I refuse to understand I don't know what it is and I don't want to I think it's just no well it's really vague I'm pretty sure it's just anything that's horror that's put on the internet they call creepy pasta okay andley I feel like we just said don't tell me Henley what that was was you crossing a boundary That I firmly set. Okay, okay. Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm done.

I'm done. I'm leaving the podcast. Don't you fucking dare. I'm leaving. I'm so tired, you guys. I don't want to be here right now. Oh. I don't even want to be here.

So don't talk to me about your fucking boundaries, okay? Okay, okay. Oh, I didn't realize I grew right. You crossed my boundary. I didn't know what was there. We did. We did. I insisting I do this fucking podcast all the time.

We make, we, we, we've made force deadly here for years. And so I think the thing that's interesting and one of the reasons why it's so hard to like, know all the lore about backrooms is that there's so much information on the internet that's just been created. It's like fan fiction that's been created.

You have to like be part of it from the beginning. Yeah, exactly. To know it. Yeah. There are like tens of thousands of people in the backrooms subreddit. But then, but yes,

but then imagine. it's like if you are a part of it and then they make a whole fucking movie it's like again i can see why studios were like yeah let's do this it already has people invested who are going to come out and see this movie right like those youtube videos have like i think joel jill tally watched one the other day and i had like 50 million views damn just like fucking crazy mm-hmm the internet is happening it's happening big time uh the production built around 30 000 square feet of back rooms which led to some crew members occasionally getting lost on set. That is a lot.

This would be like a very unsettling set to work on. 30,000. That's too much. It's a lot. Also just feels like, was that necessary? Did they really need to feel, couldn't they just redress certain sets? Whatever, I'm not going to question it. But that just feels like why do they need to do that?

It feels like a lot. It feels like a lot. Oh, also circling back to the previous point, Kane Parsons, the director, did say in the Q&A, at the premiere that I went to, that he was anticipating getting a lot of shit from fans of the series because it's like so fan made

and people know it so well that there's like literally, he's like there's literally people that are going to message me. Like this outlet is on the wrong side of the wall. Whoa. Yeah, yeah. They know like every square inch of these backrooms,

which is also very intimidating. he said he wasn't so, you know, concerned with getting every single detail correct. You couldn't possibly. But somebody's going to be mad about that. Also, he has become 824's youngest director. He started production for this movie straight out of high school at age 19. Oh, my God. He's 20 now, which means he was like 15, 16, when he was making the huge.

YouTube series. Yeah. Oh my God. That means he was 14 when COVID happened. Stop it. That's fucking wild. Scary thing of all. That really is insane to think.

I mean, and I guess what it means is it makes you very successful. Yeah. Only good and it means you're going to be a star. And I think we should watch the trailer before the recap. I would like to. Just to get the vibes. I want the vibes. I love vibes.

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Okay. What did you find? The place. Massive in there. I'm not saying I don't believe you. Okay. I'm going to come back here with proof. roof. All right. You feel me? Yeah. Follow my lead. Clark, what is this? That's what I'm trying to figure out. I've been there every night since I found the place and I still barely scratched the surface. I just take a slow. Put me up. Put me up. This place spilt. The maze. It just goes on and on. Sometimes I'm scared. I'll get lost.

You watched this? I did. I did. Oh my God. This looks scary. I said that this is like the, the, This is, looked scary to me. Looking around corners in empty rooms is the scariest thing. And it's just like, everybody being like so confused and on edge. Like that to me is like, yeah, that's really fucking scary. But also, God, what a beautiful man. I know. To look upon him.

I don't look upon him enough. I know. He was amazing. I saw him once in New York City. Saw him once. He was walking really fast. And he was wearing cool clothes and he looked fucking cool. Yeah.

Yeah. That sounds right. That sounds right. Renata, too. I love to look at her face. My God. Yeah, the acting in it is incredible. I mean, that's, you have to have some good actors in order to pull this off, too, I think,

because you got to have the right reactions. They really make you believe it. They got to sell it. They are definitely selling it. They're definitely selling it. Imagine being 20 years old and directing Chutel Edgey for. I know. It's crazy.

I saw that there was some controversy, maybe some fake controversy, probably. not real. That Kayne Harsons didn't direct it. Oh, yes. I saw Mark Duplas posted something being like, Kane did direct this movie. Like, I'm so proud of Kane. He did do it. I'm so proud of my little boy. I did. Little boy, big movie, big movie guy. And he did it for real. I was thinking about that, though, watching it because it's really well directed. It's really well directed. I mean, but that is a thing. It's like if you fucking grew up on the internet making these little videos, like these little videos. It's in your blood. So condescending.

I'm making your little videos. You can get pretty good at it. It's really condescending. But it's like, why would you be better at that when at 30 is about how much like time you spent or what you, you know? It's the language. It says first language is YouTube video. Yeah.

I mean, everybody's talking about it right now. It's like same with Curry Barker. Same with the Philipo brothers from talk to me and bring her back. just like cutting your teeth on making YouTube videos, it's all still videos learning filmmaking. Yeah, of course. Yeah, exactly. Well, I'm really grateful we get the fruits of all of the labor

from them making all those little videos. Those little videos, those little toy thing. We're just kidding. We're not, we don't need it that way. So as a woman who like cannot make a TikTok. Yeah. Oh, me either. Okay, should we get into it?

Let's get into it. Okay, we begin seeing a kind of retro logo for a company called A-Sync, just kind of flickering on screen. It's like a camcorder, also camcorder. Camcorder. Immediately scary to me. It's found footage, found footage vibes. I mean, this is found footage is what we're looking at. At this point, someone is in the back rooms.

We don't know. We're just having like POV. Seems like this person is very stressed, lost, looking around corners. A lot of heavy breathing. A lot of heavy breathing. They get to kind of a larger room. The backrooms also are very like nonsensical kind of Winchester vibes of like just kind of defied traditional architectural normal. small little steps going to nowhere.

A lot of it just looks like empty office room, office building, but there's just weird stuff sprinkled. Fluorescent lining. Very fluorescent lining. It's all very yellow. So this person makes it to a bigger room that has some sort of communication, like radio set up. They're calling to someone for help. Like, I don't know where I am.

I need someone come get me. So clearly there's like a team that's been exploring these backrooms. And this guy's looking around. A seagull flies in, screeching, big jump scare. Kind of a lot of jump scares in this movie. But also there's a lot of scenes like not in the backrooms. so it's like you get to relax for parts of it. So this seagull like flies in the wall or something and it's all very unsettling.

It's screeching and squawking. And then this guy hears something and says through the radio like there's something else down here. Hate to hear it. He hears something coming, starts running, just. in a random direction. Everything looks the same. He runs past some, like, store signage that disappears through, like, the wall and the ceiling. It's, like, a credit score.

It says, like, no credit, no problem would be the rest of the sign, but it's, like, disappears into the ceiling. And we're watching POV from this camcorder. We don't know who this person is. Yes. Yes. And then we get a glimpse of something in the show. Shadows. Looks like a big figure, like a gorilla or something. And he runs into another room. There's no exit in this room. So now he's like kind of fucked as he run back out. He's filming the entryway when we see like the shadow of something lurking around the corner. And eventually the camera just kind of goes crazy. Like it's falling and you can't.

tell what's happening, but you're just hearing like, brah-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h. Oh, no. This guy seems dunzo. Wow. Get our main title, Backrooms. Wow. I also just want to do a quick little note that they're gutting the house in front of ours currently, so if there's a lot of banging, I can hear it. I don't know if

anybody else can, but. Spooky. Spooky. To know that's going to be happening for the next three months starting at seven every morning. Oh, no. That sucks. They're doing construction. They're doing construction on our house too. They're redoing the roof.

And they literally just throwing the current roof on the ground, willy-nilly. Yeah. And I'm like, I'm like, you're going to kill one of us. Like, they're just throwing the roof off.

Like, I have small, squashable children running around out here. Squashable. When I go out of the house, I have to be like, um, excuse me,

can you make sure not to throw any of the roof on us? We're just going to the car. Excuse me. Wait, Sammy, also I have in my notes here that right before the credits roll, you get a shot of like a screen turning off and you see in the reflection of the screen what looks like people in Labcoats sitting watching the screen and it's just like really fast, really quick. That's freaky. And then the titles come up. Yep, yep, yep, yep. So they were watching this found footage, perhaps, these Labcoat guys maybe.

Maybe. Yeah, it seems like maybe the guys on the other end of the radio. Okay. Hard to say. Maybe we'll never know. Maybe we'll never know. Cut two, we see hands pressing into wet cement. This is a mother and daughter.

Sorry. Sorry, Henley. The daughter looks to be, I don't know, 10. Sure. I can't remember. That sounds right. Eight. Let's say eight.

All kids are eight. And it's like a shot coming from below up seeing the sky above their heads, and you just see like a bulldozer swinging and demolishing their house, which is kind of like dreamy. Like maybe this isn't like actually what happened cut to. We see Renata Rinesva looking at where her childhood home was. And we see the handprenner. The handprints of her hands as a kid and her mom's handprints.

She's not a kid anymore. She's a full grown up. She's a full grown adult. So everything's fine. And her memories as a kid, who cares? She's an adult. They don't affect you anymore, actually. They don't matter.

It's just in the past. Yeah. We hear her some VO from her saying, our brain gets caught in loops, paths of least resistance that we create as children to keep us safe, but always make us end up in the same spot alone. Yikes. We see she is a therapist and is currently in a therapy session with Chuitalegiapur. His name is Clark.

Her name is Mary. Okay. Who knows what I'm going to call them? Who knows? We'll have to find out. And Clark is saying, like, he's, maybe he's meant to be alone. He, like, likes being alone. He's got.

He's being American in this. Yes, they both are, I believe. Okay. I've picked up on the trailer. I was like, that's not British. Yeah. Shame. Shame.

But that's fine. What was I watching? Oh, oh, my God. I was watching sheep detectives. Sorry. I saw it. Oh, my fucking God, the betrayal. Worth a watch?

It's very cute. But watching all these American actors be British is like very different than watching British actors be American. I was like, Nicholas Braun, who are we kidding? It's also like, buddy, who are we kidding? With you? Honey, absolutely not. It's so funny.

It just like was, there was not a moment where I got like lost and maybe they're all British. like I do with Chuitel and Renata being American. I'm like, yep, I buy it. Anyways, okay, so Clark is being a little combative and saying, you know, he's fine, who cares about the loops? And Mary says, why don't we do a little role play of the night that your wife left you? fun. Yeah, why don't we?

Yeah, let's. And she says again. So it's like they've been doing this. Oh boy. They've been doing this. Again. Let's try it again. You do pretty quickly get the sense that she is a little frustrated with Clark.

And through this role playing exercise, we learn a few things that Clark was, went to school to be an architect and now works at a furniture store and has a lot of resentment about that and is a little embarrassed about that. And in this fight with his wife before she left, she, like, says something like, you know, your failed architect. And he's like, I am still an architect. And he's getting really worked up. And we find out that he's paying for her to go through school again. Is that right? Like, she's in school and he's resentful about that as well. Like, he had to work to be able to. to support the family, says like, get off your fat fucking ass and help me. He clearly has a lot of anger still about this situation. Cut to him at work. He works at Captain Clark's Ottoman Empire.

It's like a discount furniture store. Really fucking cool set design all throughout this movie. It's just like a big warehouse filled with furniture. He's speaking with an electrician and because his electricity bill is super high, like it shouldn't be. He's like, I don't know why this bill is so high. And they're kind of scratching their heads about it. They go down to check the breaker box and everything looks normal except one week. weird switch that's just like diagonally at the bottom separate from all the rest of the breaker switches. And they're like flipping it on and off. It doesn't seem like it's doing

anything. And they're like, hmm, yeah, I don't know what that is. So that's strange. But Clark also mentions that the lights all seem to flicker at night. He turns them off at night and then they start flickering in the middle of the night. The electrician is not super helpful, just like, okay, well, everything looks fine. So we cut to Clark watching TV in bed that night and pull out to reveal that he is sleeping in the furniture store. This is a bed within the furniture store. And this is how he knows that the lights all flicker at night because he's there all night long. And here we go.

Power goes out and flickering and then goes off completely. Goes downstairs, I think, and he's like messing with the breaker box. And I think for now things like go back to normal and he's just like, this is just an ongoing mystery. What could it be? What the heck is going on? Cut to next day. We're seeing camcorder footage of Clark dressed as a pirate with a fake wooden leg, very cheesy,

filming a little commercial, like, come on down to Captain Clark's Ottoman Empire. And we see two of his employees filming. This is Bobby and Kat. I think Kat is the assistant manager, and Bobby's like a sales. guy and they are dating. Are either of these Mark 2+. No. Great. You'll tell me when it is. I'll tell you when it's Mark Duplas, yeah. Nice. And Clark is

given this performance, his all. He's really going for it. He's a great actor. He's an incredible actor. It's true to Hella Giafor, so you can imagine. I fucking buy that that's a real pirate. And we see that Bobby is wearing an end apartheid t-shirt with like a broken chain on it just as memorable t-shirt that we're clocking. Also, this is all taking place in the 90s. It's never like explicitly said, but I'm pretty sure. I mean, the camcorder would suggest. Everything like the like the cars and the even the existence of a furniture store like this one. Honestly. Right, right, right. Yeah, that tracks. Yeah, that makes

sense. Yeah. For some reason, I just didn't even think about it at all. Fair. And what's crazy is, was Kane Parsons? He wasn't alive in the 90s. Sorry, I just had to put that out there. He wasn't. Whoa. This is like a period piece for him.

He's doing it. Truly. He also directed a fucking period piece. Oh my God. What a smart little boy. Making his little period pieces. So there's a point at which Clark falls and embarrasses himself, but. Whatever he gets back up and they're like, it's fine. We got it. Clark's not doing great is what we're

learning. He's not thriving. Cut to a infomercial for a self-help tape or book. I can't remember that is by Mary. Mary Klein, this is her infomercial for her book, The Window Within, that's basically like, do you ever feel like you're watching life through a glass window? Let me help you. The window was never locked. And it's very cheesy, like woman opening the windows, letting the air in. And she's like, I'm Dr. Mary Klein, and I can help you. Open the window.

Open the window within. Open the window within. We see her alone in her sad apartment. eating like a TV dinner watching this. Okay, yeah, very 90s. Yes. And we see that she still has the, or how did she get, oh, because they were like demolishing the building in the beginning,

she was able to take the cement chunk with her handprints in it. I guess that's what she made it at the beginning. So we see she's keeping it next to her little handprints. cut to that night, Clark again in bed at the furniture store, watching TV. He's watching like a rival furniture salesman commercial, which is a very funny little gag. And he's like, oh, this is his enemy. He's like, that's my thing. And yet again, the lights flicker and all the power goes out, except for downstairs. Sorry, this furniture store also has a downstairs.

That's where the breaker box is. I forgot to differentiate. But so he's seeing, like, from the staircase across the room, the light is still glowing downstairs. So he's like, hmm, let me go check that out. So he goes down, goes to the breaker box. He's flipping that mystery. switch.

And it is now like turning the lights downstairs on and off. You know, he's just like experimenting with things and is about to leave and go back upstairs when he

notices a glow seemingly coming from the other side of the wall. Like as if there's like a gap in a doorway, very slight. and he kind of moves his head left and right and it disappears based on the angle that he's looking at. And I think it kind of just disappears altogether, but he goes and is exploring the wall where it was and presses his hand on the wall.

And the wall is just a portal. His hand starts disappearing into the wall. I think he freaks out, which you would. And, you know, kind of does the classic, like, test it, test it a little more, freak out, go back, test it some more. Till eventually he goes all the way through the portal. I'd put an ottoman through that for before I would, like. Yeah, there's no way I'm going through a portal really ever. But maybe if you were, you know, at your lowest.

Exactly, exactly. That's why we have to lose. That's why we've established. Yes, exactly. He is bored, bored, bored in life. Board, board, bored. Gotta go through a portal. Got to go through this portal.

So fucking bore. And inside the back rooms now we're seeing these just room after room, yellow empty rooms. But in this first room that he goes, to there's a huge pile of furniture that in and of itself is like already very weird. Like some of it is like sunk into the floor. Some of it is melded into each other. He goes to try to like pull one of the chairs off. It's stuck to like multiple other chairs.

Really weird. At the doorway to the next room in the back, there's like a backwards stop sign. So he like turns to the right. instead of going past the stop sign and goes into a room in there. He's like calling out hello, seems like nobody's here. He comes upon a dead seagull. We saw that earlier. Putting us in time.

This is after that. Yeah, exactly. We are also seeing like remnants of his store kind of sprinkled through a. out. Like there's like a ship wheel half in the ceiling and wall. And we noticed that no credit, no problem is outside of his store as well. So we're just like seeing little remnants. Perhaps dimensions flattening over each other or something. Yeah. And he eventually finds like some electrical wires leading down a hallway. way and into another room and he's kind of following those when he hears a noise sounds like a

it's a voice but it sounds like a pre-recorded voice turns to discover it's like a one of those cardboard cutouts that has like a little pre-recorded little microphone thing i think that it's like doing different languages it's like a language teaching tape or something like that. Like that would be like in a Barnes & Noble by like the language. Yeah.

Yeah. Kind of like parley vu francaise. That's kind of what it's like. Except I don't, I don't actually remember. That's just what my memory is telling me. I like that. I like that.

My memory is just various backrooms in my own brain. It's an, aren't a, aren't ours all? But yeah, the point is, it's all very random shit that's just like the weirder and more nonsensical it is, the more unsettling it is.

Like this isn't an inherently scary thing. It's just like, what? Yeah. It's confusing. I was, this is when I started to get stressed, really stressed because I was like, leave like markers to know where to go. Yeah, I'm like, is he going to be able to find where he came? That was my fear the entire time.

I was like, you're so confident you're going to be able to find your way back. But again, he's really bored. Yeah. I'm so bored. You'll do anything when you're bored. And so long. Whatever, man. So alone.

Who cares? I'll just be here with this fucking Siegel. Yeah. So he goes past the cardboard cut out into a new room that has like some papers sticking out from underneath the wall. And he's kind of tugging at them. And seems like this wall is like covering another room. And so he's peeling back the plywood. and he's able to uncover this little crawl space that has a backpack in it with these papers coming out.

And he is looking at this backpack, grabs this backpack, and looks through the crawl space. We see another big room on the other side of this crawl space. Again, I'm not going through a crawl space, but he does because he's bored. He's bored. He's so bored. Motivation enough. And he gets to this other room where we see there are a bunch of kids. tennis shoes all like half sunk into the floor that are like completely stuck like melded with

the floor. This is why is this so freaky? And they're his assistant's shoes. They're the same shoes that his assistant. Yeah. Yeah. When they were filming the infomercial. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't like that. Uh, there's also a big hole in the middle of this floor that's just filled with chairs. Mm-mm. And one of the walls of this room kind of slopes to a tiny, tiny little, tiny little door. It's like a, like a, what do you call? Like it's not a kaleidoscope, but like one of those things that you. It's like a perception thing.

It like plays with your perception of perspective. You know, MCSher type shit where it's like. Well, it's really like Alice in Wonderland. It's like Alice in Wonderland. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But he's like, he's like, okay, I don't know if I want to go in that door. But then he hears something back from where he came.

And he's peeking through the little crawl space. And here's like, sounds like something pretty big is like stomp, thumb, thumb around in there. And then he sees the backpack like flung across the room and hears a growl. And he's like, fuck, fuck, fuck. He runs. now he's this tiny little door is the only other option in this room so he's like running up the slanted wall which looks really hard and he's like kind of sliding down trying to get to this little door that has three doorknobs and he's like trying each of them and it's of course

the third one but he's able to make it through before we're hearing the thing whatever it is coming up behind him but he closes the door but now where the fuck is he Yeah, and don't ask me because I don't really remember. I think this is a part where we are running through a lot of the backrooms, and some of them are not this, like, yellow office space. There's, like, weird, look like cul-de-sacs, but very movie-set-looking, like, unnatural. Like fake, cold-sacs. Well, this is why they had to build so many. Yeah.

Yeah. There's one that, like, looks like a closet. It has a bunch of like empty hangers hanging everywhere. Weird stuff. He's running and running. We're again hearing the thing behind him when he ends up on the other side of the backward stop sign that we saw from the beginning. So we're like, okay, now we know where we are.

Runs past the pile of furniture to the spot in the wall that he came through. And it's hard. Yeah. Not a portal. And he's like, fuck. And he's banging on it. No, no, no. We're here and growling if the thing is coming when he just slides over like a couple feet and the pole is right there.

He was just at the wrong spot. I like that. So he gets through. And somewhere in here we see Mark Deplace. Oh, thank you. Oh, my God. I've been freaking out. Like cut to him in again, a pretty like plain looking apartment watching on a.

a TV. I think this happened in the middle of, I think it happened while Clark was in the room, in the back rooms, and we see just like him watching through security cameras and sees Clark in there and is kind of like, hmm. Is he wearing a lab coat or regular clothes? Regular clothes. I think he's actually in like a robe. He's like, very comfy in his own home, just watching people in the back rooms.

God, I love Mark Duplas. Yeah. he's great. Cut to another therapy session. Clark comes in to see Mary and is like, oh boy. Boy, you know that feeling when you come into therapy and you're like, I'm coming in hot today. I have shit to talk about.

I went into some back rooms. And he has on a piece of paper drawn a map of every room that he's been into. So some time has passed. And he's been like exploring these backrooms and charting. He's been charting. He's been charting. And he's showing her these drawings saying like, so crazy, these backrooms. And obviously, Mary is like, so like slow down.

Tell me what's going on. And he realizes like, oh, obviously, yeah, you don't believe me. I'll have to get some proof. I'll be back and leaves to go get some proof. And she's like shaken. She's like, I don't know if I handled that properly. She watches him leave in a way of like, oh, is he going to be okay? Like, did I just lock that up a little bit?

I don't know. Yeah. Probably the first time she's had to do that. Yeah. So he runs to get Bobby and Kat because they have the camcorder. And he's like, we got to get some video evidence of these backrooms. he is seeming pretty unhinged. They are also a little freaked out, but he's their boss, so they got to do what he says.

And they go with him to the furniture store, downstairs. He has taped a little perimeter around where the portal is so he can find it. He's like, I've taped it on both sides, so we'll be able to find our way back, no problem. Smart. And now he does have a rope because he's going further and further in. and he's trying to map it. And so we see a little whiteboard where he's drawn a bunch of

what would look like insane scribbling. Yeah. Cat is like really seeming stressed about the situation. She's like, no, I don't want to do this. No, I don't want to do this. I'm not going through a portal with a man behaving this way.

I don't want to do this. I don't care if he's my boss. I'm not doing it. And Bobby's kind of like, whatever, you know, he's a little more, He's a little more chill about it. Sure, sure. And then Clark just pops right through that portal.

And both of their jaws drop. They're like, what the fuck is going on? He's calling from the other side. See, like, just come on in. It's totally fine. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. They both go in very slowly.

Cat is like, did he dose us? What the fuck is going on? Like, are we on drugs? I like the way. way your brain is working cat yeah and bobby again is like i don't think so i think this is i i guess a real portal for real i think this is for real he's got his cam quarter he's filming they're like what the you've been like exploring back here what the what fuck is this place Clark is like yeah i've been all over this place like there's even a pool and they're like there's

a pool and he's like well sort of now i'm interested you're telling me i just come back here and swim So he takes them to the furthest room he's gone to. He's like, we got to keep going from here, film everything. And in this room there's a bed. Oh, is he sleeping in the back rooms now? I don't think so, but I wouldn't put it past him. So they tie the rope to the bed. And he tells Bobby, you got to go down this creepy-ass hallway,

tiny little, again, sloped hallway going down to a new mystery room that we can't see that nobody's ever been in yet. And it seems really dark and scary down there. Kat is, again, like, we have to get the fuck out of here. I hate this. Bobby's like, oh, it's pretty like, this is interesting. This is crazy. I've got to see this pool.

I'm going to go take a look. And he has the rope around his waist. camera in hand as he like slowly descends into this new room that is darker and there are big piles of clothes everywhere in this room. He's, you know, looking, we're seeing this all camera POVs like, whoa, what the fuck? And walks into the middle of the room, there's like a, the ceiling opens and camera pans up into the ceiling and we see like more hallways now going vertically. He is like, what the fuck? And then we see him looking at the clothes piles and there is an end apartheid t-shirt in the clothes pile.

Yeah. He also keeps saying it smells down here. He's like it smells really bad down here, you guys. Like what does that smell? And the camera like moves to the other side of the room and just slowly passes the top half of someone's head peeking out of one of the clothes piles. Scared me so bad. Is it like alive? It's still, we don't know. It's just like a- But eyes are open.

Eyes are open. And this isn't a head that we're familiar with. Not a head that we've seen before, no. Ooy, yo, yoy. And then there's like an even darker, like completely shadowed room around the corner. We hear something really big move in there. There's just like a, like something shifts in that room. Bobby starts absolutely freaking out.

Pull me up, pull me up, pull me up. He's like running, trying to get up. Now he's running up this like sloped hallway. So it's a lot harder. He's like slipping and falling. He's like, pull me, pull me out, pull me up. They're pulling him. He gets to the top.

He's like, there's something fucking down there's sitting down there. And he's like, get this thing off me, trying to get the rope off when he starts to be pulled down by the rope. The rope is really long, so I guess, like, part of it was still down there. And he's being tugged back down the hallway, screaming. They're trying to grab him. But he just gets pulled right back down. Oh, no. And Clark and...

What's her? Cat. Cat. Cat. Clark and Cat. Are, like, at the hallway entrance, like, looking down, like, calling out to him. When the rope attached to the bed, now pulls the bed to the front of the hallway, knocking them both down the hallway, tumbling down into this room.

God. This is the scariest part of the movie, I think. And they're now at the scary room, and they just see, like, this horizontal doorway thing in the wall that we hadn't seen before, that Bobby is just being pulled through. And there's just like a trail of blood. He's just screaming and then, like, disappears into the wall. Yeah. Really scary. scary. Yeah. There's blood everywhere. Oh, my God. It's all very frantic. I think Clark has the camera now.

Or maybe it's just sitting on the floor and we're just seeing like locked off shot. I don't know because I was scared and playing my ears and coming my eyes. Holy good. She runs into the really dark room and we just hear her screaming. Clark runs like a different direction. Yeah. Just chaos. He goes through a door that we hadn't seen before, through another hallway. Again, it's just like running through mazes. He ends up in a room with like a Christmas tree in the middle, very scary. And what looks like mannequins now, like half sunk into the floor, but you're like, are those real people or are they mannequins?

And he's like circling the Christmas tree. And we just see very shadowed, like the figure. of someone sitting in a chair. Ew. And he's like getting too close to it. And you're like, can he not see that there's somebody there? Like get away from that chair. When the person in the chair like reaches to a little layup and turns on a light.

And I thought it was like a, like a marionette is what I thought it was at first. Like a puppet. Yeah, like a puppet. And you don't really see. And then he like turned. and a mannequin-looking woman is now like coming towards him, moving very freaky charging at him, not bending her limbs. So it's like straight arm, straight leg, like, charging at him.

And he runs through another room that's like all tiled. This is maybe the pool. And there's like patio chairs around. and he comes to like a dead end and it's just a wall. He sets the camera down on a table. So it's like filming him like banging on this wall. And we hear cat on the other side of the wall being like, Clark, Clark, come help me, help me. And he's like, I can't.

There's a wall here. She's like, what are you talking about? So for her, it seems like there's not a wall there. She can just see him fine. And he's like, what do you mean there's a wall? And he's like, there's a wall. And he's trying to figure out, like, can he break through the wall to get to Kat? We're just like hearing her screaming, like, help me, help me.

Oh, my God. When the camera lifts up, nobody's there and starts moving towards Clark. And we hear cat screaming, Clark, behind you, behind you. Clark turns and looks cut to black. Whoa. So we come back. We're inside of a house. A little girl is sitting all by herself in the middle of a small living room.

When Henley and I were discussing where to hand off, I was like, why don't you start with the little girl trauma? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like... And is this Mary? Yeah, this is the scariest part of the movie for me. For you. Yeah, personally. And, yeah, she's all alone.

this living room is there's sun streaming through the windows, but it's very, very muffled because all the windows have been covered in like newspaper and magazine coverings. And the door, the entrance has, there's a pile of furniture in front of the front door. So you can't, you can't get to the front door. So she's just sitting there. She's looking at the window. She can hear people outside. She can hear like the voices of other kids playing.

She can hear people talking. You know, they're like birds chirping. Clearly it's like a beautiful day outside. She wants to be outside. She's sitting. She's looking. She's listening. And then one corner of one of the newspapers is kind of flapping.

And so she like reaches up her hand to kind of touch the newspaper. And then she kind of like pulls the newspaper away just a little bit. and then she kind of like goes to the window lock and like starts kind of like opening the window was locked. And she like starts pushing it a little bit. And then jump scare, a woman's hand appears on her shoulder. This is her mom. She turns around.

Her mom is right there, right in her face. And her mom clearly is sick. Like she's not malicious necessarily. Like she's not like. She's unwell. She's just. she's sick. There's something wrong with her mom. She's kind of sweaty. She's very, very thin, very pale. And she looks like seriously worried about her daughter. She's like trying to like keep her

daughter safe. She's like, Mary, stop. I never said you could open the window. You cannot open the window. She says they're everywhere. They're everywhere. We have to keep the window closed. Clearly she thinks something's going to hurt them if they open the window. And as she's doing that, a demolishing crane comes and crushes through the entire house. And we wake up. This is a dream Dr. Mary Klein was having in bed as an adult. So she's totally fine. She's totally fine.

She is not revisiting loops in her past. That is not what she's doing. No. The rooms are not a metaphor for this. Absolutely. Not the windows. I'm not talking about windows because I experienced a window in a traumatic way when I was a child. She wakes up.

She is on top of her bed. It's like the nighttime. It's on top. She's on top of her bed, on top of all of her covers in her full work outfit with her, like, belt still on. I was like, is this how she, is this how she sleeps at night? That really bothered me. That's really upsetting.

Yeah. I really don't like it. So she wakes up. She hears her phone ringing. Her phone is ringing in the distance. So she gets out of bed. She starts walking to her phone. It goes to voicemail.

The voicemail picks up. It's the 90s. so we can hear everything that's being said on this answering machine and it's Clark. And he says, Mary, I found the window and I went through it or something like that. He's like, I found the window and I went through it. I'm home now. I'm home. And then it clicks off. I think he says, and I'm not coming back. Oh, and I'm not coming back. Yeah. And so. Well, that's not really the fun I was trying to make. And she was like, oh, fuck, this is what I was

worried about when he left. Like he did not seem well when he left. And it seems like I was right. So she's feeling a little responsible for Clark's, you know, decline. Mental state. Yeah. So she gets in her car. She drives over to the furniture store. She knows he works here. She drives on over. The place is abandoned. There's like no cars in the parking lot. She walks up to the entrance. It seems like it's abandoned. There's like mail pie. up in front, but when she goes to push the door open, it's open, it's not locked. Also, there are like flies buzzing around, which just really gives, you hate to hear a fly. Yeah.

She walks in, no one's inside, seems like no one has been inside for a long time. She sees the stairwell that Samia mentioned earlier that leads downstairs. Like all the lights are off upstairs, but the downstairs lights on and kind of flickering. And so she walks over there. She walks down into the basement. We see Clark's handiwork. Clark has been busy. It's changed even since when Kat and Bobby were there.

Now there's even more stuff. There's even more notes. There's even more whiteboard shenanigans going on. Also, there are wind chimes, which I was like, what are these wind chimes doing here? And she sees where the portal is. She can't see the portal, but she sees like, Outline. Yeah, that's been marked off.

Also, I just want to say that the music in this is like so cool and crazy. It's all very like discordant sound, just like sounds. Yeah. And I know that Kane Parsons co-composed, but I like loved this score. It's very different. Yeah, yeah. It's perfect for the movie. So we still hear this fly buzzing around.

and we were kind of like following the fly and the fly suddenly goes to the portal and the buzzing stops. Oh, there's flies in the portal. Oh, my nightmare. Trying to catch the one fucking fly in the back room. And she sees this happen. And I gotta say,

they make a meal out of her reaction to this portal. Like they did it for everyone else in the movie. What an actor, man. But they get it. every last drop of her reaction to this portal. She is like not believing her eyes. She cannot believe this is fucking real. She is so scared.

She takes, she's taking her time. She like, really, she like just touches the portion. She goes over and touches it very slowly, very slowly. And the second her hand starts to go through the portal, she like brings it back like she's been burned. Like she's like, ha. And she takes, she takes deep breath. She calms herself. she uses her therapy training and she says, Dr. Mary Klein, walk through this. Open the window. Open the window. The window is not locked. The window is not locked. She walks through the portal. She's in the first room. This time, however, the first room does not have any furniture in it. The furniture is gone. She kind of explores for a moment. I feel like she sees a dead seagull as well. Yeah, and the cardboard guy.

She's calling out hello. Yeah, she's saying hello. She's like seeing some of the things we've already seen. And then she turned... I don't like that some of it's the same and some of it's different. Yeah, the rooms do seem like it kind of change a little from time to time. Mm-hmm. She turns a corner and it's kind of like a jump stair, but suddenly there's a huge mural that we've never seen before.

This very kind of manic, crazy, intricate mural that includes... includes a pirate throwing something out of a window. There's writing all over it saying like the map is wrong, the roof is wrong. Like something doesn't match the insides. The outsides don't match the insides. There's like nonsense school writing. I didn't get a good enough look at this mural. I really wish I had like a still of it so I could really examine it. Yeah, I don't remember either. But it's unsettling. It's definitely unsettling. So she goes up to the mural to investigate. She's like looking at all the different pieces. She's looking at it. And then she kind of like hears something behind her and she turns around and she senses movement in a hallway next to her. And she goes,

Clark. And he just like steps out kind of bashfully from the hallway. And he looks like pretty normal all things considered. I wasn't sure. I was expecting him to look like absolutely. nuts, but he looks like he's wearing like a fresh set of clothes. He looks like... Well, he's figured out how to live in the back room. Yeah, exactly. Like, he's one with the back rooms now. Yes. And yeah, he's like not like covered in blood or like manic or, you know, dealing with... It was never coming back. Right, right. He's at peace. And she is saying, you know, Clark, are you okay? She says, I came, I want to help you. What can I do to help you? She asked, you know, how long have you been here? How long have you been in here?

And I can't remember if he's responding that much to what she's saying, but then they hear a noise. And it's a scary noise. It's very scary, growly, monster noise. And he rushes up to her and, like, puts his hand to his mouth. And it's like, shh, you have to be quiet. Stay quiet. And I want some research on how many movies a man puts finger up to his mouth to shush. I want a super cut of all the shush moments.

Give us the shush cut. So they're like huddling together. He's telling her to be really quiet. The growly monster noise gets louder and then it kind of goes in another direction. It seems like maybe it's gone away. But just as we're feeling slightly better about that, Clark puts his hands around her neck and chokes her. until she passes out. And while he's choking her and her vision is blurring,

he's apologizing and he's saying... Oh, no. And he's saying, I'm sorry, I have to do this. It's for your own good. It's for your own good. I'm sorry, I just have to do this. Ew. Them, after she passes out,

we are back in the room from her childhood. But it's slightly different. It's not exactly the same. This time the furniture, instead of it like being piled up in front of the door, it's kind of like starting to like fall into the sand. And then the room scrolls and it changes again. And now, then there's less furniture and there's like less stuff. She's like falling through the floor into a new version of it. Yes.

And so the room, it's like the music video turned down for what? Yes. That's what I'm sorry. You were just falling through the room until it kind of like. And turn down for what is playing. And turn down for what's playing. Don't down for what. That's what Sammy was talking about when she said she loved the music.

And it's getting, it's like flattening essentially. So like all the details, all the like specifics that made it her room to slowly disappear like into the sands of time essentially until it becomes just like. Until it's just like a completely new room entirely. It's no longer the room from her childhood. And she wakes up. And when she wakes up, she's still in the backrooms, but she's in a different backroom this time. And she's tied to a chair sitting at a table.

And there's another man at the chair sitting. And he's a man with many faces. He just has a bunch of different faces. Yeah, a bunch of eyes. And it looks like when you print something and the. paper gets jammed and it prints a bunch like it's not like a bunch of different it's like he's got like like when you're like projecting a face onto a face or it's like when you try to take a panoramic photo and your face gets fucked up and you have like three eyes and then like a nose here and a nose there

remember when that was like happening for a while yeah yeah yes yes so he's also at the table I hate that. There's a man sitting behind her in a wheelchair with a lamp next to him that he turns on. And the man is also like disfigured. This is the guy from the Christmas tree room, which they all have like mannequin quality to them. But they're like moving. Alive. Yeah.

Okay. Hate it. And then there's Clark who's sitting at the other end of the table. behind Clark, there's the woman, the mannequin woman from earlier who was like chasing after him. Okay. There's like a refrigerator in this room. It's kind of almost like a kid. It's kind of like a kitchen, but it's not a kitchen. Clark is holding a knife. He has a knife next to him. And she's trying to remain calm. Dr. Mary Klein, she's putting on her therapy hat. She's trying

to remain calm. She's saying, what are you doing? Let me go. Like, this isn't you. I want to help you. please let me help you. Tell me what you need me to do to help you. He is, you know, now doing his, like, villain monologuing stuff where he's saying, like, this place distorts the outside. The outside is in here, but it's not the outside. It's different in here. I can't remember, like, I can't remember, like, the specifics of what. He's like, I'm part of the rooms now. The rooms are me. I love the rooms. Better. I'm finally at home. I'm at peace. Like, I've found the purpose. of my life. Yeah. But he's also kind of like manic. I'm a victim to the rooms. The rooms are in charge. And at one point he gets up and he opens the fridge and inside the fridge is cat's head. Yeah, bad, bad, bad, bad.

She screams. And he says, oh, that's just my assistant. And he says, and these guys, these guys here, you know what? They don't feel anything, Mary. They don't feel a single thing. We can. do whatever we want to them. We don't do we can do whatever we want to to these people. They don't feel any of it. And you know the best part? The best part is that we can eat them. Oh my God. And then he takes the knife and he cuts like a hole out of the man's stomach. That's the best part. And he like rips out part of this man's stomach and it looks just like marshmallow fluff. Yeah. Yeah. And he like, okay, well, I'm understanding why that's fun. And he like puts it in front of her as though like,

like, here you go. Yum, yum. Yum. It's like sticky styrofoam. And then he put some of it on his plate and he's like, try it. It's delicious. And then he says, you know what? I know.

I know. And he goes, let's have the conversation again. Let's role play the conversation again. That's what I want to do. And she's like, okay, sure. Okay, we can do that. And he goes, hold on, hold on, though. No, no, no.

Your hair is all wrong. And he gets up and he walks. the woman in the back. And he fucking scalps her, which is also, wasn't that also just an obsession? Yeah. Yeah. We're scalping. We're scalping people.

We're putting heads on other heads or putting hair on other hairs. Yeah. Because you know what? It's really upsetting. It's effective. It's effective. It's very effective. So he scalps this woman who we have been told doesn't feel pain.

So we're feeling like, I guess that hurts better. but still not fun to watch someone gets scalped. No. And then he puts her hair on Mary's head. Okay. And then he goes back and sits down. And they start the conversation over again. And it's the same one they had in the therapy office earlier in the movie.

There's the same like back and forth where she's accusing him of drinking. Also his wife accused him of drinking too much. And he says like, I just stopped. the bar and I had a few beers and then she says define a few and he starts screaming at her like which is what he did before but this time this time Mary's fucking had it she's like I'm done I'm done I'm done she takes the scalp rips it off her head like throws it on the ground and she screams I am not your wife and then she goes let him have it she's like nothing is ever your fault is it It's everyone else's faults.

Like blame everyone else. Like it's not your fault. You're not an architect. Blame your wife that you're not an architect. Like the store is not doing well. Blame the guy down the street. Anyone else. It's never you.

It's never you. Like even this, even us right here, even us sitting having this conversation right now, right here. This isn't even your fault, is it? And it kind of gets through to him. He like kind of hears it for a second. Honestly, I would love it if my therapist one day would go. Here's what I think your problem is.

I've been listening to you for years and it's this. It's you, bitch. Here's what your problem is. Yeah. Tell me. He's chastened by this outburst and he pauses and reflects and then is kind of childlike and is like, I like it here. I like it here. I don't want to go home.

I finally found somewhere that feels like. That's fine, but I do. And then she says, then don't. Stay here. Don't leave. But you have to let me go. He thinks about it. He's like weighing his options.

We're not sure what he's going to do. But finally he's like, okay, he agrees. So he stands up. He's got the knife, walks over to her. You're like on edge. You're like, what's he going to do? He starts untying her. He gets one hand done when we hear the crew.

creature again. Oh, God. We hear this creature. We hear some banging. Fuck is this fucking creature. We're about to find out, Emily. It's not what you think. Is it Marche-plus? And no. But we also somewhere in here too, is, is he like, will you say that I'm cured? Would you say that I'm cured? And she's like, yeah, I think you're, I think you're cured. I don't know why that like stood out to me. He's like, I'm cured, right? Tell me I'm cured. Yeah, she's like, we don't have to have any more sessions after this one. This can be our last session. All good.

So the monster guy walks in. Now this monster, it is like a 10-foot version of Clark, maybe like a 14-foot version of the version of him that he was playing in the infomercial, like the pirate. He has a peg leg. He's dressed like a pirate. And he's got a totally fucked up, deformed face. And he's groaning. He's like a cartoon.

Yeah, he's like a cartoon. He can't, he's like trying to, trying to like say something. He's got like a big baby. It's like a big fucked up, deformed pirate Clark baby with a peg leg. Okay, sure. I picture it perfectly. And he walks in and it's like bra, blah, blah, blah. And Clark reassures the monster.

He's like, what are you doing here, buddy? He's like, you don't need to be in here. No, no, she says we can stay. She says we're cured. says we're cured it's okay we can stay you don't have to hurt her we're cured we're all good we're all good she's it's all fine the monster's like oh and then just leans down and just fucking fucking takes a big old honk bite a big old chonk and honk and honk a big honkin chon a big a honk and chon bite a big old honk and chonk bite out of ronata no out of Clark like at first you're like

from where are the same team like his neck like his shoulder like his shoulder neck area. It looks like a fatal bite. Yeah. Coming from this size of pirate man. Pirate baby. Pirate baby. Cartoon Clark.

So blood sprays. I guess meanwhile she's been like trying to get her arm out of the other chair. She's been like frantically trying to get it out of the other chair. She sees this happen, gets it out like right in time and runs past them, runs out, starts running through the backrooms and he is chasing her. The baby or Clark? Clark. Well, so baby, big baby, big scary, big scary pirate baby.

He almost kind of reminds me of like a huge Pinocchio monster. Yeah, he kind of looks like a marionette. Actually, he kind of looks like a marionette. Yeah. Huge pinocchio monster, okay? He's chasing. He is chasing and he has, and he has Clark's body. He's like holding on a Clark's body and Clark's body is so like, it's like a brag doll.

Like it's like it doesn't even. Clark is dead. Clark is dunzo, bonzo. He's like, he's like one of his limbs has fallen off. Ew. He is dead, dead, dead, dead. Okay, good, okay. So she runs.

She runs. There's like a part where I think this is where the hallway like starts to narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow. She has to squeeze through it. She's like squeezing, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing through it. And she just makes it through. And when she gets to. a door that has like a little dog door in the bottom of it and the door is locked but she can like crawl through the dog door and she lands on a ledge. The ledge is inside like a courtyard

that seems to have this. It's like there are rooms on all four sides and the middle is just a full drop and there are like windows on all the doors but she like can't access any of them. she's stuck on this little ledge. It reminded me of cabin in the woods a little bit where it's just like here's the center of like all of the back rooms and there's just like infinite doors and windows and like a huge drop down to nothingness. Nothing.

Like who knows what. There is on the other side of the ledge or on the other side of the room like a staircase. Okay. Staircase leading up into something, into one other door. So she can hear the monster like coming, squeezing its way through that tiny space getting to her. She can hear it getting closer and closer. And she starts like crawling on the ledge, like going to the ledge, scooching over to the staircase, scooching over to the staircase.

She makes it to the staircase as he's like bashing his way through the door. She starts like lifting herself up, climbing the staircase. And also even just climbing the staircase is scary because there's like no sides. me out. Yeah. They did it. It was like a done in a way that I was like so scared of falling. Me and the audience in my seat. It's also like why is the staircase? The staircase couldn't exist. Like there's nothing supporting it. Yeah. It's just like floating. Every part of your brain is like the staircase will fall plummet. I'm going to plummet to my death. Yeah. Yeah. So she's like making it up through the staircase as the monster is like bashing his way through. She gets the top, opens the door. She like pushes her way and slams the door. and she's in the basement of the furniture store again. But it's not the basement of the furniture store. It's like it is, but it's different.

And there are wind chimes all over the place. Oh, God. The monster's still obviously chasing after her. So she sprints up the stairs to the first floor of the furniture store. Again, it's a furniture store, but not the furniture store. Like the windows are all, you can't see outside. Like, there are windows, but then they lead to just. like concrete nothing. Yeah, she tries to get out, but it's just like a concrete wall. So she's like

running. She runs to the front. She runs to the front. She's like, maybe this front door is going to work. And you're like, it's not going to work. But she like tries to open it and just hits concrete. It opens like an inch and it hits concrete. And then she turns around and that fucking marionette fucker has made its way. And it's also, it's also fun though because she's all the way across the room. And so, and he has to like make his way to her with his like freaky little peg leg. Yeah. And so she's like, okay, I've got to fight this thing. Obviously, I don't have another choice. So she's looking around for a weapon. She's like running into a corner. She finds a coat rack. She like grabs the coat rack. He's like approaching her and she swings it at his peg leg and knocks it. And knocks it.

him out. He like falls to the ground and she he's like on top of her attacking her at one point and she's like stabbed him with the wooden leg and then she remembers that in her pocket she has the cement chunk right with the handprints in it and she pulls it out and just starts bashing his head in which you're not even sure if it's going to really do anything because is like not human. Yeah. Like is he marshmallow fluff inside? Is this where his brain is?

Yeah. But it does seem to. You got to work with what you got. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, I guess all of a sudden, there's like fire extinguishers in the room that just start like spraying smoke after she seemingly kills the pirate guy. Yeah. And there are suddenly like men in hazmat suits coming into the room to like. Like, like, collect her and to collect the specimen, monster man.

Mark Duplas, slow claps. Yeah. Yeah. They bring her into another room where they spray her with something to like, D back, you know, D whatever. D backrooms her. D backrooms her. She is like in a lab.

She's suddenly in a fucking lab. It's like, it reminds me of like Westworld or something where all of a sudden you're seeing like all the macsendons. that are going on behind the fantasy of whatever this is, although it's not a fantasy. And she sees, for example, the monster being taken care of. He's in, like, a medical bay. And there's, like, doctors who are, like, treating the monster. And she's like, what the fuck is going on?

She's being led around by these scientists. And then she ends up in an interrogation room. and she is sitting across from Mark Duplas? Mark Duplas. Mark Duplas. And he introduced himself. Hello, I'm Mark Deplas.

She's like, what is happening? Where am I? His name is Phil. Just Phil. Hi, I'm Phil. He says, you know, this company where we work, you know, we used to make MRI machines. And she goes, is this your job? Is this your entire job?

He's like, yeah, well. No, my job is, yeah, it used to be MRI machines, but then we found out, we found this. And so now my job is kind of this. This is my job. And she's like, have you been back there? Have you been in there? And he goes, yeah, many times, many times I've been back there. And she's saying, what's going to happen to me?

He's like trying to get information. He's like, we're really going to need to know, like, everything that happened. Like you were in some rooms that we've never been in before. So tell us everything. And she's like, I want to go home. Like, please let me go home. And he's like, well, can't really go home. I don't know.

We can do that. And then does he try to explain to her what the backroom says? Sorry, my notes really like deteriorate at this point. I don't think so. I think he's just like asking her to tell him what she's experienced. And she's kind of like piecing together that they're not going to let her out of the room out of the back room. rooms. So she's not telling him. Basically, she's not telling him, like, what she saw.

Yeah. And he's, and he's trying to, and she's trying to say what's going to happen to me. And, and then, yeah, he's like, well, it's not, it's not really my decision. It's not my decision. It's not up to me. What happens to you. And she starts laughing because she realizes her loop has brought her here. Her, like, trying to focus on other people's problems instead of her own has led her. And now she's here. Right here. And she laughs and laughs and laughs and we get shots of like a bunch of different backrooms that some we've seen before, some new ones ending in. Her slumped in a chair.

She has a bunch of faces just staring in the backrooms. And then it's over. That's the end of the movie. Oh, that's dark. That's fucking bleak. Woo! I know. I was like, but can you eat her now?

Is she marshmallow? Can you eat her? Well, here's the best part. Wow. What an interesting tale. Yeah. I do actually, I kind of do want to see it. Now I'm like, I don't know.

I kind of want to. It's not, I don't think it's too scary. I was able to see it. I mean, it's definitely scary, but it's not like. Yeah. The midpoint is the scariest. And then it gets like silly, like the big pie. pirate guy is like pretty silly and funny, I thought. I was delighted. I was absolutely squealing

with delight at this like big comical, um, bumbling pirate Pinocchio man. And I think that alone is worth the price of admission. I love it. Because I also wonder, was that the, was that always the monster or did people have like different versions? Right. Is it change for each person? Yeah. Yeah. You guys did a perfect job. I mean, I haven't seen the movie, so I don't know what you missed, but I think you did a perfect job and I was riveted. Good, good. And I loved it. May none of us ever end up in a back room?

I would not go through a portal. If I saw a fly go through it, I'm like, well, thank God the flies in there, not out here with me. And I am good. I'll be out here in the fly-free, regular room. Yeah, no portal for me. Thank you very much. Wowie. Wow, I love horror.

I love Gen Z. I love the internet, and everything is good. Everything's good. I'm trying to think if there was any voices in this movie. No, not really just the groaning. Not particularly so. From the last year, too scary.

Just kind of glitchy-ish monster talk. Bye. Bye. Bye. We did it. We made it. Thank you all for listening to another episode of Too Scary Didn't Watch.

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We love you. That was a HeadGum podcast. Hi, I am Mandy Moore. Sterling K. Brown. And I'm Chris Sullivan. And we host the podcast, That Was Us, now on HeadGum. Each episode, we're going to go into a deep dive from our show, This Is Us. That's right.

We're going to go episode by episode. We're also going to pepper in episodes with different guest stars and writers and casting directors. Are we going to cry? Yes. A little bit. Are we going to laugh? A lot. A whole lot.

That's what I'm hoping, man. Listen to that was us on your favorite podcast app or watch full video episodes on YouTube or Spotify. New episodes every Tuesday.