From 'Backrooms' to 'The Shining,' Cinema's Most Disturbing Liminal Spaces

The recent surge in popularity of the horror film Backrooms, now streaming on HBO Max, has thrust the term "liminal space" into the mainstream. The film, directed by Kane Parsons, features actors Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve navigating disorienting, seemingly abandoned office environments. These spaces, often characterized by a sterile or uncanny familiarity, can be interpreted as manifestations of the subconscious, defying physics and logic while harboring monstrous entities.

This exploration of surreal, transitional environments echoes the work of directors like David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick, who predated Backrooms in their use of unsettling, purgatorial settings. These filmmakers, and others, have consistently utilized liminal spaces to evoke unease and explore psychological themes.

Andrei Tarkovsky's 1979 film Stalker features the "Zone," a surreal wasteland where characters journey in search of a room that grants wishes. The Zone's ambiguous nature—whether a tear in spacetime, a limbo, or an alien construct—allows viewers to project their own interpretations, making it a potent example of a liminal space.

David Lynch, a filmmaker particularly known for his use of such spaces, created the Red Room, also known as the Waiting Room or the Black Lodge, in his Twin Peaks franchise. This iconic location, with its distinctive chevron floor and red curtains, serves as a gateway to other dimensions, a place Lynch intentionally left unexplained, emphasizing intuitive storytelling over explicit narrative.

Alex Garland's Annihilation presents the "Shimmer," a quarantined area of mutated flora and fauna, heavily influenced by Stalker. The film uses this zone as a physical and psychological journey, culminating in a disquieting confrontation with self-reflection.

Charlie Kaufman, whose filmography is replete with explorations of the psyche, directed I’m Thinking of Ending Things. This film employs a dream-like logic to examine a fractured relationship, drawing comparisons to Meet the Parents and Stalker.

Stanley Kubrick, a master of disturbing cinematic environments, is represented by The Shining. The Overlook Hotel itself, with its endless hallways, isolated rooms, and spectral encounters, serves as a quintessential liminal space. Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey also features profound liminality in its abstract ending.

Other films that delve into these unsettling territories include Joel Potrykus's Relaxer, where a protagonist remains static on a couch for an extended period, contemplating isolation and the end of the world. Vivarium explores the idea of suburban conformity as a liminal trap, with a house-hunting couple finding themselves in an endless, identical neighborhood.

Cube presents a literal maze of interconnected rooms, each with potential dangers, forcing characters to confront problems repeatedly until their demise, a stark metaphor for life's journey. The video game adaptation Exit 8 similarly traps its protagonist in a looping train station, requiring puzzle-solving to escape a mundane reality.

Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin uses an alien's predatory hunt to explore themes of identity and existential dread within otherworldly spaces. Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God depicts a descent into madness along the Amazon River, symbolizing a journey to nowhere.

The concept of liminal spaces, as highlighted by Backrooms, taps into a long-standing cinematic tradition of using "in-between" locations to explore fear, alienation, and the human psyche.