Everything must go in the new extended cut of Kane Parsons‘ “Backrooms,” released in theaters on Friday.
“Backrooms,” which followed furniture store owner Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) as he stumbles across the confusing and eerie web of mirror spaces, later joined by his therapist Mary (Renate Reinsve), became A24’s highest grossing movie since its May 29 release. And on Friday, fans were treated to an extended cut of Kane Parsons’ horror hit, which came with an additional 15 minutes of post-credit footage.
The new footage begins with a team of Async Research Institute employees venturing into the Backrooms. Aysnc, the organization responsible for opening the gateway to the Backrooms, was seen at the end of the movie when Mary escapes and ends up speaking with Async researcher Phil (Mark Duplass) in a private room.
The opening of the post-credits scene firmly places the to-be-seen events on June 18, 1990. A group of hazmat suit-wearing Async employees, one of them holding a camera and establishing himself as the point of view, begin exploring the space.
In their words, it’s the “same hallway shit” at the beginning, interceded by photos of doors and passageways, until they come across three signs with the same slogan: “Everything Must Go. Entire Store on Sale.”
The signs appear identical to the ones previously displayed in Clark’s store, where he dresses up as a ship captain in hopes of attracting customers to his dying business. The voice-over, recorded like an on-duty log, says Dr. McCarthy is “eager” to see the signs for himself.
The next day, they set out to investigate the three signs. They try to decipher if they are recurring duplicates of one item or if they existed individually in the space they’ve been copied from. The signs follow a descending order, and after concluding the signs were screen-printed and hung with steel cords, an off-screen voice demands they cut into the fourth wall, believing a fourth sign to exist there — which it does.
Also present in the wood panelling inside the wall is a hand sticking out of a beam. The central narrator panics, but at the command of their higher-ups, the team heads in anyway.
Once on the other side, the hand turns out to belong to a mannequin, standing next to a ship steering wheel. Also in the new room are more signs, coat racks and lawn furniture.
The Async employees begin to hear a sound in the distance, but keep exploring to find another mannequin and a steering wheel, this time half-submerged in the floor, and later a TV, flashing between a blue screen and flashes of seemingly random footage.
The increasingly loud clanging signals to the team that they “have to go,” but as they begin to make their exit, a figure appears abruptly, causing the team’s members and the camera to crash to the floor as the narrator yells out, “What the fuck!”
