One of the newest places that the horror world is finding fresh voices is on YouTube and other streaming platforms. Social media content creators like the Philippou Brothers (Talk to Me, Bring Her Back), Mark Fischbach (Iron Lung), and Curry Barker (Obsession) have proven to be some of the most exciting filmmakers recently working in the fright flick genre. And quite possibly the most anticipated movie from one of these influencers comes from A24 and a fresh-faced, 20-year-old filmmaker named Kane Parsons, who has adapted his viral CreepyPasta YouTube series The Backrooms into a freaky feature, simply called Backrooms.
Backrooms is about a furniture store owner named Clarke (12 Years a Slave’s Chiwetel Ejiofor) who, while investigating an electrical problem in the basement of his shop, discovers a hidden door that leads to a labyrinthian series of brightly lit, yellowish-beige rooms. While exploring the massive expanse, Clarke disappears, and his therapist, Mary (Renate Reinsve from Sentimental Value), goes looking for him. She also stumbles upon the rooms and realizes that there is something sinister going on in them.
With his The Backrooms YouTube series, Kane Parsons (as Kane Pixels) created a creepy liminal space found-footage mythology that is almost video game-like in its presentation. The camera footage combined with what seems like training and informational videos gives the impression that it’s something the viewer should not be seeing. It’s just flooded with conspiracy theory terror.
With the movie Backrooms, Parsons and co-writer Will Soodik (Homeland, Westworld) have taken that mythology and crafted a well-plotted story within it. While there are found footage and lo-fi elements to Backrooms, most of it is straight narration, a slickly produced movie worthy of having two Oscar nominees in the lead roles.
Visually, Backrooms takes influence from everything from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to Twilight Zone: The Movie. From a story standpoint, it’s probably closest to the Insidious franchise with its excursions into The Further. But all this is moot, because Backrooms is completely unlike anything you’ve seen before. It’s intensely creative and fiercely unique.
Parsons relies mostly on atmosphere to build his world in Backrooms. There are a couple of shock moments, but for the most part, the movie stays away from cheap jump scares and leans more heavily on its creepy visual aesthetic coupled with its unsettling sound design and equally unsettling score (provided by sound designer Eugenio Battaglia and composer Edo Van Breeman, who also worked together on The Monkey and Keeper). Backrooms is built mostly on vibe and tone, and it nails it.
And within the world that Parsons and crew have created, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve are able to bring their rather simple characters to brightly colored life. Of special note are the actual therapy session scenes outside of the Backrooms area, where both actors lay it all out for each other in a perfect display of “oh, wait, that was all exposition?!?” Once the heart starts pumping in the depths of the Backrooms, both Ejiofor and Reinsve completely understand the assignment – they’re in a mind-bending horror movie, and they both know it. No one is worried about the fact that they’re making a schlocky fright flick; they’re just making the best schlocky fright flick they can make. And it’s all on screen.
Now, in the end, Backrooms does leave a few ends loose and a few things unexplained, and that’s probably by design. A movie like Backrooms is best left with the audience wanting more, and leaving a bit of mystery to it is a great way to accomplish that. So, while it’s far from completely unsatisfying, it doesn’t slam the book shut, either. It lets the audience fill in their own gaps, and who’s to say who’s wrong?
As far as Kane Parsons goes, who knows if he can make a non-Backrooms movie? It feels like he’s spent the entirety of his short life and career so far leading up to this moment. It will be exciting to see what he does next, though, because he has a distinct analog voice that not many others can emulate, or at least emulate well. And since he’s been so prolific online, we hopefully won’t have to wait too long to see his name again. But for now, Backrooms is a great calling card.
GRADE: B
Rating: R for some violent content, language, and bloody images
Runtime: 1 hour 50 minutes
Release Date: May 29, 2026