Editorials
5 Signs You Are Being Possessed By the Devil!!
I don’t know much about the Devil in the traditional sense. I haven’t been to Catholic school, I don’t think I’ve been baptized or confirmed. I’m, at my most optimistic, an agnostic. But I do believe in being possessed by The Devil. I’ll explain why in a second.
Tangentially, I also believe in The Devil’s Due, which is now available on DigitalHD (it hits Blu-ray on April 29th). You can read my review here. I dig the directors, Radio Silence, and I particularly like how the last act of the film builds on the gory promise they showed in V/H/S. So, while this is indeed a sponsored tie-in with that film, it’s a film I’m more than happy to support.
I don’t necessarily know exact how accurate my assessments are, but let’s have at it!
Head below for 5 Signs You Are Being Possessed By The Devil!!
1: You Let A Shady Cab Driver Take You To A Satanic Ritual
Let’s say you’re an otherwise smart, upper middle-class couple with a decent head on your shoulders. You’ve just gotten married. The world is at your fingertips. Letting a cab driver take you to a shady club in a foreign country, even if its for free, is pretty dumb. There must be some demonic force already at work to make you do such a thing.
2: You Crave Raw Meat
I eat a lot of meat. I’m trying to eat less, but it’s hard when I’ve just found all of these new BBQ restaurants in my neighborhood. That being said, eating raw meat – especially when pregnant – is a bad move, even to this heavily carnivorous writer. Is the Devil even a demon? I’m pretty sure he is. Though I’m even more sure that eating raw meat while pregnant is not in that Dr. Spock book. Thank God we can afford that book now.
3: You’re Telekinetic
While telekinesis isn’t always a sign of being possessed by the Devil, here it is because this is a movie about demonic cults, Devil worshippers and kids that, more likely than not, will grow up to be fairly familiar with Satan himself. If I was telekinetic I would use it to print money somehow.
4: You Punch Out The Windows Of Inconsiderate Drivers
I hate it when cars almost hit me. I hate it even more when they DO hit me. And if they hit my pregnant wife, I’d lost my sh*t. Unless my pregnant wife was possessed by the Devil or something and could practically disassemble the car with her bare hands. Luckily I’ve just ensured that all of our bills are paid and I can cover the deductible on the insurance!
5: You Make Your Priest Have A Stroke
Let’s face it. Strokes are common. But so are priests so no worries! Still, making one almost bleed out in front of a bunch of little kids isn’t very ladylike. In fact, it’s Devil-like. I’d say you’re possessed by the Devil in this case. Either that or you are *very* hot. But again, all your bases are covered for the month so send your husband over there with some expensive roses to get the real skinny on your condition.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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