Filmmakers, Screenwriters, Performance, Reviews, Film Reviews, Streaming
THE OLDEST VIEW
Kane Parsons is the seventeen-year-old writer-director of “The Backrooms,” a series of short, disquieting films set in a creepy liminal space of endless ugly yellow hallways and blank offices, where something awful is always lurking just out of view. His series has racked up more than a hundred million views on YouTube. The director recently got a deal with film company A24 (“Everything Everywhere All At Once,” “Hereditary,” “Moonlight”) to make a feature length version of the twisted universe he has created. For the uninitiated (like me), “The Backrooms” began as a ‘creepypasta’, (oh, those kids and their wacky portmanteau words!) which is roughly defined as a horror-related legend, and has been shared around the Internet. First appearing in 2019 on 4chan (an anonymous imageboard website where people discuss video games and post shots of things they find mildly disturbing), the following anonymous quote and accompanying image became the flashpoint for a viral phenomenon. “If you’re not careful and you no-clip* out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the Backrooms, where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in. God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you.” *(No-clipping, btw, is a video game term for commands which allow the player to go through solid walls and objects).
From this tantalizing germ of an idea, a vast universe of images, fan-made video games, YouTube shorts, collaborative fiction projects, and countless reddit and subreddit discussions were spawned. But it was Parsons, with his definitive eye for the telling detail, and an uncanny flair for immersive world-building, who set the standard in 2022 with the first of what would become seventeen short, brilliant and deeply chilling films set in “The Backrooms,” a merciless, twilit, nightmare world of unrelenting dread from which there’s no escape. Created at home on his computer using Blender and Adobe After Effects software, the films, with their faux handheld POV camera moves and meticulously orchestrated soundscapes, eerily untether the viewer from reality in a way that lingers in the body like an unshakable feeling of doom. And his new series of films, an ongoing work-in-progress entitled “The Oldest View” continues this thrilling trend in even more imaginative and unsettling ways. The third film, titled “The Rolling Giant,” which uploaded on October 8, is by far the best thing Parsons has done, and should be watched in a darkened room late at night for maximum creep factor.
The plot, about a teenage YouTuber who, after discovering a mysterious underground stairway in the middle of the forest, makes the terrible decision to follow it down to where it leads, manages to ratchet up the tension to unbearable heights without a hint of gore or violence. Instead, Parsons simply shows us recognizable images through a warped lens, slowly transforming the familiar into something disorienting and monstrous. Like shadows that lengthen as the sun sets, the further our hero descends into the dark unknown, the further from sanity he gets. Parsons is not the first filmmaker to linger in the grey mordancy of the in-between spaces. David Lynch built his career on showing us what it looks like from inside the walls of madness and despair. But Parsons is able to translate these dark messages from his psyche without a trace of self-consciousness. His films are unfussy and matter of fact, mixing the clear-eyed simplicity of home movies with the uncanny poetic glow of a nascent cinematic virtuoso. The films in “The Oldest View” are full of sly hints at just how expansive this strange universe will end up being. As with “The Backrooms,” we get the sense there are endless stories to be told from this fertile, enigmatic ground. And I’m looking forward, with the anticipation of a superfan, to whatever comes next. In an interview with YouTuber Anthony Padilla, Parsons was asked if being ‘discovered’ by A24 was going to change the way he creates:
A response to quicken the pulse of any cinephile. Meanwhile over in Hollywood they’re getting ready to remake “Barbarella,” “Narnia,” “Overboard,” “Poltergeist,” “Red Sonja,” “Cliffhanger,” “Blade,” “Robocop,” “Carrie,” “Emmanuelle,” “The Bride of Frankenstein.” Etc. Etc. Etc.
The death knell of American cinema has been rung many times before. But this year has been particularly damning for the future of Hollywood as we know it. Multiple strikes, the failure of tried and true franchises and the dismayingly tepid output by the old guard of formerly first rate film directors has created an ever widening bog of mediocrity, seemingly devoid of fresh innovation. If Hollywood isn’t dead, it’s sure acting like a patient on life support.
Perhaps it’s time for the creatively dormant arbiters of the tired old paradigm of endlessly recycled product to be replaced by a new generation of energized artists. Creatives like Kane Parsons who are well versed in all of today’s filmmaking DIY toys, unspoiled by the Hollywood hack and hackneyed tropes of yesterday, and ready to tell their unique and thrilling stories.
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An LA-based playwright, JUSTIN TANNER has more than twenty produced plays to his credit, including Voice Lessons, Day Drinkers, Space Therapy, Wife Swappers, and Coyote Woman. His Pot Mom received the PEN-West Award for Best Play. He has written for the TV shows Gilmore Girls, My So-Called Life and the short-lived Love Monkey. He wrote, directed and edited 88 episodes of the web series Ave 43, available on YouTube. Tanner is the current Playwright in Residence for the Rogue Machine Theatre in Hollywood, where his most recent play Little Theatre, of December of 2022, was met with rave reviews. Charles McNulty of the LA Times writes, "Engrossing... a comedy à clef... “Little Theatre” is invaluable.'"
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