How a Vancouver wallpaper shop helped bring the eerie 'Backrooms' to life
July 3 marks the release of an extended edition of the hit A24 flick Backrooms, and a Vancouver-based wallpaper shop played an important role in creating the film’s eerie vibe.
Daily Hive was contacted by Wallpaper Online Canada, which has helped out on various projects in the film industry.
Backrooms was partially filmed in Vancouver, including the maze-like backrooms themselves, and Wallpaper Online Canada played a huge role in bringing the sickly yellow maze to life.
We spoke with Ben Monkhouse, one of the co-owners of Wallpaper Online Canada, about the company and how it got involved with the Backrooms production. He and his co-owner built the company out during COVID.
“We do lots of different kinds of custom wallpapers and try to bring some joy to people’s walls,” Monkhouse said.
It was the Backrooms set decorators, with whom the company had worked before, who said they had a “big project.” It wasn’t till after release that Monkhouse realized how big the project was.
Backrooms/A24
Finding the right shade of yellow for the iconic walls featured in the film wasn’t as easy as you might think.
“We got to work with their art department, and essentially we did like 30 or 40 different iterations of the color to get the perfect yellow,” Monkhouse said.
He pointed out that colours would appear differently in-house versus in the shoot due to the changes in lighting and other factors. The wallpaper would appear differently online on a screen compared to when it’s printed and in front of your eyes. It’ll also look slightly different once on camera.
“So it’s kind of fun being part of that process, because you could see the creative side as it was coming to life.”
Monkhouse suggested the production needed thousands and thousands of square feet of wallpaper, considering the various adjustments that needed to be made. He said the sound stages they were building were located in Delta, B.C.
When asked about the aftermath and what it felt like to be part of such a spectacle, Monkhouse said, “I don’t think we realized the scale of it as we were entering into the project.”
Monkhouse told Daily Hive that the film industry is a growing part of the company’s business.
“You’ve got all these productions being made in Vancouver, all these big sound stages, movie studios. Netflix just opened up a new animation studio here.”
Monkhouse said it’s a fun industry to be involved in, especially because of the turnaround time.
“They always need everything yesterday.”
Other productions that they’ve worked on include Tracker and a new film starring Nicole Kidman.
Outside of the film industry, Wallpaper Online Canada offers something special with its custom wallpapers, as there aren’t many companies like it here in Canada. Particularly at a time when folks are looking for Canadian and local solutions, which Monkhouse says there’s been a huge increase in.
While other companies offer similar services, he said many of them are located in Europe or the United States.
Monkhouse hasn’t seen his company’s wallpaper come to life with a Backrooms viewing yet, but he has another opportunity with an extended edition being released today.
Another local business was also prominently featured in the promotional campaign for the movie, the 2400 Motel.
Backrooms was produced in part by Oddfellows Entertainment, which Vancouver producer Chris Ferguson helms.