r/spoilers

I just saw this movie last night and while I enjoy the most common interpretation of the movie (Sandy is not possessing Nikki), and I enjoy the Sandy is "possessing" Nikki theory, I also kind of enjoy another idea- the notion that the entire movie is Sandy's revenge for being murdered by Bear. Not "possessing" Nikki directly but like the wish being Sandy's will/orchestration. I think there is a clear argument to be made that Sandy was not killed via negligence. There was a mixture of food sitting out and this medication happens to be comingled with that food. And we're talking about medication that Bear normally DOES NOT STORE in that location. AND medication that can be sealed, obviously. Additionally, Bear is quite obsessed with trying to think about any and all methods whereby he may get the interest of Nikki- going so far as to simulate his confession of love to her with a stranger to gauge potential reactions. He is calculating outcomes of his actions very carefully. So his killing his own cat seems very plausible. In the early stages of that movie he is also portrayed as being very unstable and confused overall. Beyond that, we see a cat on the One Wish Willow, and Bear ultimately dies via the same drugs that Sandy was killed with.

Actually the more I've thought about this the clearer it is to me that he killed his cat. He dumped the body in the garbage and had written "DO NOT EAT!!" on the bottom of the bottle to further deny his own agency, just like he does throughout the movie. (basically him trying to further say to himself- I told you not to eat it!) When you add up all the above it's pretty clear. It's the opening credits of the movie- him doing two different things to try to advance his cause with Nikki. A rehearsal of what he'll say (which people shoot down) and his killing his pet to potentially garner sympathy.

I think the movie is about consciousness. The backrooms are just collective human consciousness. fMRIs have allowed us to discover most of what we know about the human brain. There’s a reason why this MRI company suddenly pivots away from building MRIs; with these doors to the backrooms opening up around the world (as Phil mentions at the end of the movie), they’ve found a literal glimpse into human consciousness. But it’s so messy and full of trauma and misremembered people and places because human consciousness is also messy. As a result, they’re struggling to understand what the hell they’re looking at. But that’s the point of the film: there is NO making sense of the human mind. It’s messy and ugly and inaccurate. It’s up to each one of us to determine what is real, what is important, what stays with us, and what we have to let go. That’s the genius of approaching a movie about consciousness through the lens of the therapist-patient dynamic.

Mary gets to peek inside Clark’s mind when he kidnaps her and takes her to the memory of his house, and she challenges him to take responsibility for his failed career, his failed furniture store, and his failed marriage. Monster Clark devoured real Clark the moment he stopped and accepted that he would rather just stay the same person forever, trapped in his own habits and damaging thought patterns. He was comfortable in the backrooms because it was easy and familiar. The backrooms that we see in the film represent the obsessive, repetitive thought patterns he had after his wife kicked him out. “I don’t want to change,” he said. Nobody wants to change, because it’s HARD. Mary couldn’t help him because ultimately, it’s up to each one of us to decide whether or not we want to change.

But regardless of whether or not we want to change, our traumatic experiences still exist. This explains the last shot of the film where the collective human consciousness shows its rendition of the trauma Mary is experiencing being trapped in that room with Phil, unsure about whether or not they’ll let her leave.