Does the Real Mary Escape in “Backrooms”? What to Know About the Psychological Thriller’s Unsettling Ending

‘Backrooms,’ starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve, premiered on May 29

NEED TO KNOW

• Backrooms follows a furniture store owner who discovers a distorted maze of rooms
• Director Kane Parsons intentionally left the ending ambiguous to encourage audience interpretation and set up future stories
• Though a sequel hasn’t been confirmed, he stated that he has an entire film series mapped out

Backrooms‘ final moments left fans as lost as the characters trapped inside.

The horror movie, which premiered in theaters on May 29, followed Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a bitter divorcé who discovers a seemingly endless maze of rooms in the basement of the furniture store he owns. He becomes increasingly consumed by the otherworldly dimension, which alarms his therapist, Mary (Renate Reinsve).

When Clark goes missing, Mary follows his trail into the sprawling labyrinth and soon finds herself unable to escape its grasp.

Kane Parsons — who became the youngest director in A24 history at 22 years old, per USA Today — told Polygon in May 2026 that he was hesitant to explain the ending, fearing his interpretation would be “taken so seriously.” However, he did shed some light on Clark and Mary’s fate inside the Backrooms.

Here’s everything to know about the Backrooms‘ ending, including whether or not Mary made it out alive.

Warning: Backrooms spoilers ahead!

How does Backrooms end?

Throughout the film, there’s evidence that something sinister is lurking among the surreal rooms. The unknown monster is revealed to be a distorted version of Clark, dressed in the pirate costume he wears as his store’s mascot.

Clark takes Mary captive inside the Backrooms and ties her to a chair. There, he tells her that he’s made peace with “Pirate Clark,” a manifestation of his own destructive nature, and can live in peace in this dimension.

What happened to Clark?

Mary argues with Clark’s deluded reasoning, and he decides to hug Pirate Clark to show her that she’s wrong. But when he embraces his demented doppelgänger, it bites and kills him.

Parsons told Polygon that he hoped fans saw this moment as “the engine of the film,” as Clark’s growing obsession stems from the way the Backrooms seem to fill an emotional void in his life. Being bitten by Pirate Clark may be a manifestation of Clark’s deepest emotional wounds and desires — or maybe the monster just needed a meal.

“It very well could be that Clark was just feeling especially hungry that day, and there’s no particular reason to [Pirate Clark’s attack],” the director explained to Polygon. “I think narratively, it does not read that way. But there’s just no way to know, because we don’t get a monologue from Pirate Clark.”

What happened to Mary?

Before Pirate Clark murders Clark, he frees Mary from the chair. She starts running after the attack, and the monster continues to pursue her as she makes her way back to what appears to be the furniture store.

The therapist stuns Pirate Clark with a cement handprint she pocketed from the Backrooms and is taken prisoner by Async Research Institute, the company that has been monitoring the other dimension. Viewers see Mary being interrogated by Async employee Phil (Mark Duplass), as well as a twisted version of Mary sitting in silence by herself.

Those unsettling moments leave it unclear whether the Mary who escaped the Backrooms is the real therapist or the distorted copy created by the dimension.

Who controls the Backrooms?

Though it appears at times that the Backrooms are a fluid reflection of Clark and Mary’s mental states, the nature of this maze-like dimension isn’t revealed in the film.

Parsons didn’t confirm to Polygon who or what is in control of the Backrooms, noting that it was a revelation he had “to protect for the future.”

“I am a little averse to explaining the events in the work I do,” he added. “I swear I don’t want that to seem like a cop-out. It’s just, my audience loves to defer to my word over their own interpretations.”

Will there be a sequel to Backrooms?

Backrooms‘ ambiguous final scenes left both the ending and the franchise’s future up for interpretation. Which is just what Parsons intended.

“[Sequels are] more than an option — it’s been the intention since 2022,” the director told Polygon in May 2026. He started making Backrooms-related YouTube videos four years before his debut film, inspired by an anonymous photo of an empty yellow room shared on 4chan.

The eerie image, originally posted in 2019, sparked a viral piece of internet lore known as the Backrooms, a creepypasta concept imagining the unsettling void you might stumble into by “noclipping” out of the boundaries of reality, much like a glitch in a video game. Parsons explained to USA Today that he was compelled by how many people related to “this thing that they could not quite articulate,” and plotted out a large storyline based on it that goes far beyond a single film.

“This film is the first part in what I would desire to be several narrative steps, in terms of approaching what I consider to be the true heart of the idea,” the director later told Polygon. Though A24 hasn’t confirmed if a sequel is in the works, a film series would be Parsons’ “dream scenario.”

“And in general, the series, in my mind, is not determined by its genre label,” he added. “The way I think of it is definitely a lot more of an interpersonal sort of drama built on top of a supernatural techno-thriller. That’s more the space I feel comfortable in.”