"Backrooms" Motion Picture Soundtrack ALBUM REVIEW [ambient, mixed]

by Dean Wolfe, Prog Dog Media              Released 2026

Given that Backrooms represents a relatively new form of psychological horror film, I find myself asking: what is so compelling about it? Why would I want to linger in that unsettling world by listening to its soundtrack—allowing the music to follow me out of the theatre and into my everyday living?

One answer lies in my long-standing appreciation for ambient music—even ambient music that is unconventional or unsettling. In my own assessment, only about fifteen to twenty per cent of Backrooms consists of outright horror or implied menace. The remainder is something quite different: a fascination with discovery, with wandering through a world that is strange, unfamiliar, and unexplored. It invites curiosity as much as fear, offering the feeling of encountering something genuinely new and mind-expanding.

There are no human voices on the album. Instead, much of it leans into artificial, mechanical textures—sounds that feel abandoned, automated, and detached from any human presence. These patterns seem to echo through an apparently endless liminal space, reinforcing a sense of emptiness and industrial afterlife rather than lived experience.

Some of the tracks are undeniably ominous and tension-filled. Homothet, Layout Extrapolation and You Know Me evoke genuine terror, while Wired is unmistakably creepy. Yet these moments are often fleeting. The soundtrack spends far more time evoking mystery than fear. Much of the soundtrack is surprisingly engaging—at times even lovely and playful, albeit in an off-kilter, uncanny and dizzying way, capturing the strange allure of liminal spaces that seem to invite endless exploration. It is this sense of discovery, rather than horror itself, that keeps drawing me back.

Humble MRI Company is one of the few tracks that features a clearly discernible melody and hints a human presence. More often, melody is only implied, subtle, or absent, with the music instead relying on texture, tone, and atmosphere to carry its effect.

There is no percussion or steady beat in the traditional sense, but in a few tracks a sense of rhythm is still implied. In Open the Window, for example, a simulated heartbeat provides a subtle pulse that drives the piece forward, giving it a faint but persistent momentum.

There are two notable reprieves within the soundtrack’s otherwise tense atmosphere. One is a fiddle-driven jig associated with a furniture store commercial, which briefly shifts the tone into something almost traditional and lighthearted. The other is an organ-led, muzak-ish Latin-style piece that similarly breaks from the prevailing mood. Both moments stand out precisely because they interrupt the surrounding unease, offering brief, almost disorienting flashes of familiarity and levity.

In summary, Backrooms is an effective soundtrack that closely reflects the film’s overall experience. Not something you'll want to put on around the kiddies or unsuspecting toddlers. It captures its shifting balance of curiosity, unease, and disorientation, and translates that atmosphere into pure audio. It's also not an album suited for solitary listening in the dark. It's suggestive, lingering quality can become haunting outside the context of the film. That said, this is also part of its strength—it preserves the emotional atmosphere of the film it accompanies, taking it beyond the screen.

This is an hour and a half of music, so there’s plenty here to immerse yourself in. I only wish they had leaned a little further into melody on a few more tracks, giving theater-goers something more immediate and memorable to carry with them after the experience. Without those stronger melodic anchors, there are moments where the score risks drifting into more generic territory.

My standout tracks include “The Untrained Mind,” “Landsick,” “Humble MRI Company,” and “Old Home Not Yet Built,” which features saxophone and/or oboe parts that add a welcome human warmth and character to the soundtrack.

As a standalone listening experience, I'd probably give this 3.5 dog bones. But as a companion piece to the film and the world it creates, it earns 4.