The Backrooms, in Kane Parsons’ psyche

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The genius revealed: the Backrooms are the stage of a terrifying figure that has existed in the human psyche for centuries—the figure of Frankenstein. Here it appears dissected and consumed by the world around us. The Backrooms are a reflection of our current reality, of our fears, or rather, the fear of a new generation (the technological era). While in the mythology of Frankenstein the environment—the world around him—was influential but secondary, the real terror, the fear, was Frankenstein himself. Now it is the world around us that frightens us, and rightly so. The Backrooms devour everything, including our old fears.

THE FIGURE OF FRANKENSTEIN

The Backrooms create copies of reality, and when a person enters them, they create copies of their mind at varying depths, in the same way they copy memories and the perception that person has of themselves. Now then, what if that person has trauma? In psychology this is understood in terms of the ego and the superego; then it would create copies of each of those perceptions we have of ourselves. In this case, Clark and Pirate Clark—that is, Victor and Frankenstein. I will not go into a psychological dissection of this figure from human mythology, but it must be understood that a person can have two different realities caused by trauma.

And here comes the brilliance of the new fear: who is really the predator? Which part is born from trauma, and which is the part that retains humanity before the trauma—Clark or Pirate Clark? And although it ultimately doesn’t matter, since the Backrooms devour both equally, I will explain my theory.

PIRATE CLARK NEVER KILLS ANYONE

Bobby, the first victim of the film, descends into the Backrooms alone for the first time. All previous times he had been guided by Clark. This means it is a Backrooms created for him, a recreation of his mind, and he dies because of his own fears or whatever he had in his head (I would need to analyze the room in depth; I’ve only seen the film once). Pirate Clark never appears, and for me that is Parsons’ great deception.

Meanwhile, Kat: we know of her when she speaks with Clark through different rooms—hers made of glass, Clark’s of walls (remember his isolated personality). We never hear of her again; we do not know if she is dead or lost in her own psyche, since she is in her own Backrooms.

“Normal” Clark attacks Mary, ties her up, and recreates the scene they previously had, but this time more aggressively, as if nothing prevents him from being evil. He only releases her when she calls him a crybaby, and I think that, seeing himself reflected, he lets her go—and it is precisely there where Pirate Clark appears.

This is where, if we understand Clark as Victor and Pirate Clark as Frankenstein, he devours himself in order to save her.

Other points would include how Pirate Clark is nothing more than a reflection of the Clark he is ashamed of, and how Mary removes him using his own traumas, symbolized by the image of his hand in the cement, and the scene where she escapes through narrow walls where Pirate Clark seems to be asking for help.

That is the brilliance: how everything seems to fit without anything truly fitting. A special mention goes to Clark’s character, feeding on his own memories.

FEAR IS NO LONGER WHAT IT USED TO BE

And here I point to what is truly terrifying: it is not Frankenstein that frightens us in this film, but the Backrooms themselves—the creation of a generation absorbed by new technologies that draw us ever deeper into a world that is difficult to understand, where terror is no longer defined by a single figure as it once was.

Finally, I would like to share another theory, and since I do not know much about this world, these are mostly speculations. If the Backrooms generate realities from the consciousness of those who inhabit them, the distorted image of Mary at the end of the film suggests that we are no longer seeing objective reality. We are inside someone else’s Backrooms. Whose? Possibly that of the scientist Phil, whose memory of Mary is fragmented, distorted by guilt or by prolonged exposure to the facility. If this is the case, the second part will not only explore Async, but will also show us how the corporation itself has become a collective Backrooms, where each employee projects their own version of reality.