Kane Parsons' 'Backrooms' Transcends Liminal Horror with Nostalgic, Psychological Depth The film Backrooms, Kane Parsons’ feature-length adaptation of the internet’s most enduring liminal space, captures a childhood fear so visceral it feels like a shared collective memory. Unlike traditional nightmares populated by monsters or supernatural entities, the Backrooms—a vast, labyrinthine expanse of abandoned offices, flickering lights, and disorienting geometry—evokes a primal dread rooted in the uncanny familiarity of a place that feels both real and impossible. Parsons’ vision, shaped by production designer Danny Vermette, transforms the Backrooms into a hauntingly tangible manifestation of existential unease, blending retro-digital aesthetics with a psychological exploration of isolation and trauma. The film’s narrative centers on Clark, a man who stumbles upon the Backrooms and becomes obsessed with unraveling its mysteries. His initial curiosity evolves into a fixation, as each expedition reveals more about the space’s impossible nature. The production design meticulously reconstructs the Backrooms as a world built from half-remembered instructions about reality, with glitched furniture, half-submerged domestic objects, and a geometry that spirals into surreal absurdity. Jeremy Cox’s found-footage cinematography amplifies the disorientation, using compositions that deny spatial certainty and immerse viewers in a state of perpetual uncertainty. Parsons’ work draws parallels to Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, a novel that redefined postmodern horror through its labyrinthine structure and existential dread. Both works channel the ancient terror of becoming lost, but Backrooms amplifies this with a contemporary anxiety: the fear of epistemological collapse.#renate_reinsve #kane_parsons #danny_vermette #jeremy_cox #mark_z_danielewski
Indie Horror Films 'Obsession' and 'Backrooms' Captivate Gen Z Audiences and Box Office The box office success of indie horror films "Obsession" and "Backrooms" has sparked significant interest in Hollywood, highlighting the growing influence of young YouTuber directors in shaping the film industry’s trajectory. These low-budget projects, directed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons and 26-year-old Curry Barker, have drawn massive audiences, particularly from Generation Z, and are reshaping how studios approach theatrical releases. "Backrooms," produced by A24, opened to a staggering $118 million in its debut weekend, with its eerie depiction of endless yellow hallways terrifying thousands of viewers. Directed by Parsons, the film’s success has positioned it as a major hit, while "Obsession," released by Focus Features, has grossed $148 million globally in just two weeks despite a production budget of only $750,000. These figures have surprised industry insiders, who previously doubted the viability of small-scale horror films competing with mainstream blockbusters. Matthew Frank, associate editor at The Ankler, emphasized the cultural shift these films represent. "They’re breaking out with these films that are appealing to a younger demographic," Frank said, noting that the majority of ticket buyers in recent weeks were under 25. "This demographic has traditionally been overlooked by studios, but these films are resonating with them in a way that’s hard to ignore." The success of these indie films comes amid broader challenges facing the film industry. Multiplexes have seen a sharp decline in attendance due to the rise of streaming platforms, the lingering effects of the pandemic on ticket sales, and the 2023 Hollywood strikes that disrupted production schedules.#a24 #focus_features #curry_barker #kane_parsons #matthew_frank
‘I Found a Place’: How Backrooms Captures the Horror of Sinister Architecture The latest A24 thriller, Backrooms, plunges viewers into an unsettling journey through liminal spaces, transforming mundane architecture into a source of existential dread. The film follows Clark, a furniture store owner and architect played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, who stumbles upon a mysterious portal to a labyrinthine realm of endless fluorescent-lit rooms. His attempts to explain this phenomenon to his therapist, Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve), become a chilling exploration of the psychological toll of navigating an unknowable, bureaucratic void. Directed by Kane Parsons, the 20-year-old filmmaker and youngest to collaborate with A24, Backrooms evolved from a series of YouTube shorts created using free 3D software like Blender and Adobe After Effects. These shorts, which first gained traction in 2019, introduced the concept of “backrooms”—a fictionalized expansion of the dead malls that became internet folklore in the early 2000s. The first image to popularize liminal spaces was a 2003 photo of a renovated furniture store in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where the emptiness of a shuttered big-box retail space evoked a sense of disorientation. As these physical spaces decayed, they became symbolic of the alienation of modern life, existing in a state of liminality between the real and the imagined. The film’s central setting, the backrooms, is a vast, repetitive expanse of identical rooms with drop ceilings, yellow-tinged lighting, and walls adorned with corporate-style wallpaper. These spaces, which defy logic and geography, mirror the bureaucratic sterility of modern institutions.#a24 #chiwetel_ejiofor #renate_reinsve #backrooms #kane_parsons
