A24's Backrooms movie left many fans confused about its timeline and how long Chiwetel Ejiofor's Clark spent in the Backrooms. Seven years after Backrooms lore began with a 4chan creepypasta, YouTuber and now director Kane Parsons is expanding the sinister saga on the big screen. The Backrooms' latest victim is Clark, a failed architect and furniture store owner who discovers the exit from reality in his store's basement.
Warning - The rest of this article contains spoilers for The Backrooms.
Backrooms makes its timeline clear early in the movie, as the camera's timestamp shows Clark entering the liminal space for the first time. This places his strange discovery on the evening of Friday, June 29, 1990.
Days later, Clark has another therapy session with Dr. Mary Kline, which establishes that he hasn't drunk since that Friday. The furniture store boss then turns to two of his employees, Kat Taylor and Bobby Franklin, to help him explore and document the Backrooms, although they would never return.
A missing-persons poster for Kat and Bobby in the Backrooms states that the duo was last seen on July 3, 1990, before venturing to their deaths with Clark. As such, Clark's early explorations of the Backrooms, which he visited nightly, helped him map its paths and become familiar with its mechanics, lasting roughly 4 to 5 days.
After that point, Clark returned to the Backrooms, this time joined by Kat and Bobby, although none of them ever returned to their homeworld. Instead, Clark was pursued into the Backrooms by a curious Mary, who discovered that her patient had become manic over time.
Clark, Mary, Bobby, and Kat aren't the only ones to venture into the Backrooms during A24's latest psychological sci-fi horror. Backrooms also touches on the Async Research Institute's investigations into the yellow-soaked realm.
How Long Was Clark's Final Trip Into the Backrooms?
By the time Mary goes looking for Clark at Cap’n Clark’s Ottoman Empire furniture store, a stack of mail has built up under the door. This signals that the store has been abandoned and unmanned for some time, but the stack isn't big enough for more than a few days or weeks to have gone by.
When Mary comes across Clark in the Backrooms, he doesn't respond when she asks, "How long have you been here?" Despite not giving a clear answer, the decline in Clark's mental state, coupled with the apparent bond he has formed with the Backrooms' Still Life entities, implies that it is longer than we assume.
Backrooms lore has always indicated that time moves non-linearly and erratically, varying from fast to slow depending on location. It's also widely believed that those unlucky enough to be stuck in the Backrooms age far more slowly, meaning that Clark could, hypothetically, barely look different, despite having lived many years.
Unfortunately, there is no clear answer on how long Clark was in the Backrooms after he returned there with Kat and Bobby and encountered Pirate Clark. While all signs suggest that Clark was gone for several weeks in real time, it's impossible to tell how long passed for him in Backrooms' warped time.
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