Young filmmaker Kane Parsons has been talking about his influences for Backrooms in various interviews the past several weeks, with video game Portal 2 coming up quite frequently. Other inspirations that Parsons himself has cited include the television series “Mr. Robot” and the Half-Life games, but there’s also one horror movie that keeps coming up in conversation.
Director Mark Romanek’s psychological horror movie One Hour Photo allowed Robin Williams to flex a whole new set of acting muscles back in 2002, and it’s one film that has stuck with Kane Parsons as much as it has stuck with us here at Bloody Disgusting over the years.
While Kane Parsons was born three years after One Hour Photo released in theaters, he cites the film as a major influence on the visuals and overall tone of his Backrooms universe.
Parsons tells Letterboxd, “[One Hour Photo] is probably of all the specific films… I feel like it’s the one we referenced the most visually and tonally for Backrooms. I could certainly on a cinematography front and acoustic front, we definitely went to it quite a lot. When you look at it, it inherently is pretty thoroughly in the language of Backrooms.”
Parsons continues…
“It’s a story that focuses on an individual who’s sort of fallen into an isolated place in life where he’s got his profession and he’s got the deal he’s made with the modern world, and the world we live in, and how he uses some very specific technical functions of this modern world to give him a profound feeling of purpose and engagement with his life and his sense of self.”
Kane Parsons also mentions One Hour Photo in chats with Dread Central and Variety, telling Dread Central that it’s a film he loves. He explains to Variety that One Hour Photo specifically inspired the look of “the outside world stuff” that’s featured in the Backrooms movie.
Robin Williams stars in the 2002 thriller as Seymour Parrish, an unstable photo developer who targets an upper middle-class family after he becomes completely obsessed with them.
One Hour Photo‘s inspiration on Backrooms makes sense when you revisit the 2002 film.
Paul Le wrote here on Bloody Disgusting in 2023, “One Hour Photo‘s immaculate and thoughtfully designed aesthetic punctuates Sy’s story from start to finish. In contrast with the warm and saturated palette that gives off a quality comparable to old photos and darkrooms is the film’s centerpiece. SavMart is a hyper-stylized big-box store where the fluorescent lights are brighter than normal, and the shelves are stocked in the most eerily uniform manner.”
“Sy’s everyday environment borders on the surreal, which only adds to his increasing delusions,” Paul’s retrospective goes on to explain. “This sterile setting possesses an almost purifying and celestial light. SavMart runs on monotony, whereas the world outside the store is cluttered and generally uncomfortable to be in. So when Sy is fired from his job, his devastation is to be expected. Banished from his own personal heaven, Williams’ distraught character is forced to live full-time in the ugly reality beyond SavMart’s exit.”
You can rent One Hour Photo on digital outlets including Prime Video.
