u/CaliTexJ

This may be a post-and-ghost, but I wanted to share my initial thoughts because it's hard to stay away and it's too fun to keep theorizing. I hastily did this but I think it's worth going shot by shot to teas out things to discuss.

Promo Trailer Breakdown

0:00-0:05
Dr. Kline walks toward the blue tape outline on the wall.
I don’t recognize the song.
 
0:05-0:07
Windchimes. I think we’ve settled on these being a theme or a visual leitmotif for Ivan Beck. Focusing on them for a moment probably means something.
 
0:07 – 0:16
Dr. Kline walks through the stable threshold that has seemingly spontaneously appeared in the basement of the furniture store.
We hear the Still Life leitmotif, but distant and distorted.
Since it was clear in FF3, I wonder if it’s meant to be incidental music (heard by the character(s)) or if it’s just there for the trailer. The distortion and distance make me think it’s incidental, so I suspect it’s being played by the same speaker that had been playing the Voyager greetings. I also therefore suspect that that music is meant to lull the Still Life (whether there is only one or if there are multiple), and the beat is meant to lure it to a given area. That also makes me think that the music is not from the Complex, but that it’s from Async. I wonder if there is an automated system to play it that Ravi had triggered accidentally, or if someone is observing and playing it intentionally. Eek.
 
0:16 – 0:18
A medium close-up of Dr. Kline processing what she’s observing.
 
0:18 – 0:20
An “estasblishing shot” showing us the room Dr. Kline has entered. It’s empty now. Did Clark empty it?
 
0:20 – 0:21
What a weird set of houses. The sky looks fake to me – the clouds are uncanny. Clearly this is an inhabited place, and likely in Standard, tempted though I am to overthink the clouds.
The shot is very visually balanced, which I think is further evidence we are in Standard.
 
0:21-0:22
Clark is knocking on the window, and we have a shot from inside. A touchtone landline phone is on a table with some books and a takeout container beneath the window, indicating this is a very lived-in space.
 
0:22-0:24
Finn and Lukita’s characters are in the place together at the front door (house/unit number 130), and Clark asks them to borrow a camera and come with him.
 
0:24-0:26
The shot from the trailer of Finn in the mirror using the Camera.
Finn’s dialogue is telling here. Clark knows he can’t convince anyone of what he’s seen, so he’s vague.
 
0:26-0:28
Clark in on the floor, presumably in the basement of his furniture store. A whiteboard is behind him with some attempt at mapping. A stop sign from standard is partially hidden under his couch (the ARG implies that Clark stole it).
Clark says “I did tell you, research.”
 
0:28 – 0:29
Clark’s table of maps and the inverted “POTS” sign he’s apparently taken from the Complex.
0:29
A single frame from a VHS with very poor tracking of a room that’s partly obscured by the tracking issues. It’s also in black and white. The room has something like crown molding, but with equally-spaced circular protrusions that may be lightbulbs. It appears there is something in the right third of the screen but it’s mostly obscured (it’s a stretch, but it almost resembles sunrays). There may be something else on the left, but its shape is even less clear and it could just be static.
 
0:29-0:31
A room in the Complex on VHS. There’s an arch in the wall in the background, and an open doorway inside of it that is rectangular, a bit tall, and a bit narrow. To the right, we see a recess with what appears to be a thick tripod and what appears to be a wooden workbench or possibly a studio desk. There are black boxes on the table and cardboard boxes in front of it. In the right foreground, we see some bags and a case, all or mostly black. To the left midground, we have a folding table, and beneath it is an open greenish box for what I assume to be a power tool of some kind. This is all on a blue-grey cloth tarp. On the folding table, we have what I assume is some lab equipment. There are also cables going up the wall behind a tall tour case with casters, presumably holding commun9ication equipment or a computer. There is also a cable on the ground. I take this as an indication Async is using this room.
 
0:29-0:33
There is a white bird on the floor in the far midground, center-room. As we approach, we can see what are probably feathers from the open doorway. The bird appears to be a seagull. When we are a step or two away, it awakens and begins flying away with a screech. We follow it to the left and what I thought were cables going up the wall is actually a narrow opening blocked by the tour case, with cables going along its ceiling and out along the wall with the folding table, which now also reveals some blue equipment on it. There is also a few stacks of black tiles on the ground, which resemble acoustic treatments.
 
Briefly:
I think the Seagul might correspond to the arms of the Still Life in FF3 (but I just watched Red’s theory about the Still Life, so it might just be fresh in my mind). I think that narrow opening is blocked with furniture like other areas in FF# because that’s how you keep a Still Life contained. I suspect it is not physically strong (bird-boned?). I think this may be the narrow area Dr. Kline runs through later, possibly leading to the Palm Tree Backdrop room, but we all know there’s more than one such passage.
0:33-0:35
Shot of a California parking lot, probably outside of Clark’s store. A flock of seagulls flies through the shot. 
0:35-0:36
A shot up at a presumably homeless man with a shopping cart full of items, staring at a bottle he is shaking with seagulls flying overhead.

0:36-0:38
The familiar shot or clark opening the passage to find a blue backpack, which I previously assumed was his from an earlier shot in the trailer where he is wearing a similar backpack.

0:38 – 0:39
Clark is going through the contents of the backpack, including an Async security clearance card, several floppy discs, a VHS tape, a cassette tape, and a metal lock box. A blue floppy in the top left corner appears to have the name Ivan Beck on it, the word “Pathway,” or (more likely) “Funding,” and the year “‘89.”

0:39-0:41

Appears to be Dr. Kline walking away from the camera down a dark hallway, presumably in her own home.

0:41-0:44
Familiar shots of Clark walking up to the mounted camera and the view from the observers’ side.

0:44 - 0:45
A tiled/pool-like area. Chairs are in a recess in the wall above the cameraperson. We are moving forward, looking around. Panning left, we see a large tile head facing us from the corner as we sweep past some uneven steps that appear to mark the path through. There’s what appears to be a passage tunnel near the head. Further left, the room pushes back to exposed pipes and two what appear to be hybrid urinal-sinks on a wall. The floor near here has a dark opining. Some tiles are knocked down and there is detritus around like a canaster.
Worth noting, we are not moving slowly-the cameraperson appears to be jogging or walking quickly.

0:45-0:47
Clark is jogging into the first room he had entered with piled-up furniture, and looks over his right shoulder as if fleeing something startling, but not something that is chasing him. I assume, because there is no tape on the wall, that this is from his first expedition, that he’s spent the night in there and he’s late to open the store, and that this is when he feels the wall to find an opening.

0:47-0:48
Cameraperson’s view. We are running. Panning quickly from a large pile of chairs, we swing right past an opening in the upper wall hinting at a “Pitfalls” kind of area and not entirely dissimilar from how Ravi came through an opening in FF3.
Continuing to the right, we see there is a path just past this wall. A little further, an opening to a hall with flashing red light. Further right, we see multiple couches in varying degrees of being sunken into the floor. It’s almost like an installation of the process of a couch either emerging from the floor or being absorbed into it. Above the furthest back, fully above ground cough, we see an opening in the wall with a sharp incline (could this be at the bottom of where Finn and Lukita’s characters are a bit later?)

0:48 - 0:50
Dr. Kline in the indoor neighborhood, which we have seen in the teaser, but it’s a longer shot with more motion.

0:50-0:51
A shot I referenced earlier. From a cameraperson’s view, Lukita’s character is moving toward Finn’s, in apparent fear, and they are beginning to grasp each other. As we swing right, we see a steep drop that I suspect could be the top of what we saw in the couch room.

0:51
A new shot of Dr. Kline apparently slipping into a/the narrow hallway.

0:51 - 0:53
A hallway blocked with multiple chairs. The light furthest back switches off.

This screams “Still Life,” doesn’t it? So ominous in context.

0:54-0:55
Dr. Kline and Clark in a small room in the Complex. Dr. Kline (I presume) asks, “Clark, …where are we?”

0:55
One frame static

0:56
One frame blue with slight green line and indecipherable background (reminiscent of when Peter Tench timejumps)

0:56
Shot through an indoor house showing the sun poster from FF3 along a wall outside a window.

0:56
A shot of piles of probably clothing in a vaguely living room esque setting.Iin center-right midground, we see what appears to be a disheveled Async hazard suit (or body), yellow, with the right boot removed. There are what appear to be footprints around it. To me, the perspective makes it look disproportionately short, but it’s evidence of something awful. Also, is that a tube thing moving in the center background?

0:56
A shot of someone coming up the steep hallway where the protagonists were belaying down in the trailer. There’s a brief frame of red and green interference, which matches other shifts in the teaser released a week or two before this.

0:56
A shot from the camera’s perspective on VHS. What appears to be Lukita’s character is running away. There’s what appears to be a small puddle of blood to the right, and a hand moving on the left. I think some are theorizing the hand is a Still Life, but I can’t help thinking it’s Finn’s character having been attacked and Lukita’s character is forced to run for her life. This looks like it’s in the “Laundry Room,” and Lukita’s character is running toward where we saw what has been theorized to be a Still Life that looks like the Cap’n Clark’s logo/mascot guy.

0:56
A tiled room similar to the one from earlier, with a bathtub to the right. A door is in the wall before us, with the house numbers “409” on the outside. There are hanging potted plants, too.

0:56-0:57
A hand from the camera person is opening a white door.

I understand this is a place to discuss theories, and that titles help people decide what to engage.

However, some of us are trying not to figure it all out before we get to see the movie. It’s a hazy border between looking for breadcrumbs and also not wanting to know too much. I’ve been looking for clues but I don’t want a list of characters to tell me too much. Kane’s work is great because of the mystery, and with a movie, it takes some effort to preserve that.

For those using the “spoiler” tag, thank you. Please be mindful of what’s in your titles as well.

For those not using the “spoiler” tag, please reconsider your approach. You can be right before everyone else, and I hope you are 😁.

I, for one, am avoiding looking at posts on this sub until after the movie comes out at this point because of what I’ve already seen today.

I don’t envy anyone trying to moderate this sub right now!

I didn’t notice anyone aggregating these, so I thought it might serve us to try to understand.

If we take Clark’s first interaction with The Complex as a hint, the Voyager (have we listened to confirm that?) record having greetings in multiple languages is kind of meta, and the different may titles tell part of the story.

There was some hubbub on here about the Brazilian trailer and poster (which would be in Portuguese). But the movie is called:

“Backrooms: Um Não Lugar”

We were told this translates to “Backrooms: A Non-Place.” There was some discussion, but it seems to me that it’s an indication that it’s Liminal Horror.

Recently (as of this post), we’ve seen the Spanish poster that says

“Backrooms: Sin Salida”

“Sin Salida” can mean “no exit,” “dead end,” or “no outlet.” Obviously each of these carry story implications. “No Exit” means they’re trapped and have to fight their way out. “Dead End” could be a nod to “Static Dead End.” “No Outlet” seems to be a traffic sign, which we’ve also seen in The Complex.

So overall, I think it’s been clever marketing and I think there’s something for us in taking not of the different titles in different markets.

Are there others I’ve missed? There must be.