A24’s Backrooms Movie Trailer Showcases Endless Yellow Rooms, with Origins from an Online Post

Years ago, one single comment on a major internet forum stood out. Someone recalled drifting out of regular reality and into a never-ending maze of yellow chambers known as the Backrooms, which included damp carpet and unpleasant buzzing fluorescent lights. There was no way out, and no doors to guide you back home. Nobody knew who built the area or why anyone would want to stroll around in it. That small message quickly grew into a creepypasta tale, and the whole thing began to expand.

Kane Parsons saw that post as a teenager and decided to attempt and bring it to life. He started making these short found-footage clips on his own and just posted them on YouTube under the name Kane Pixels. One of them built up tens of millions of views overnight. People kept going back for more because each new clip merely added to this extremely unpleasant universe without ever explaining anything. Parsons was able to maintain a tight tension while keeping the areas large and empty. He is now directing the full film adaptation of it, his first time behind the camera for an entire picture.

A24 became aware of the videos and decided to reach out. They collaborated with 21 Laps Entertainment, Atomic Monster, and Oddfellows Pictures to convert the concept into a full-scale theatrical release. They hired Will Soodik to write the script, and Parsons collaborated with him to shape the story, which he’d been working on for several years. They shot the most of it in Canada last summer, and Parsons was only nineteen, making him one of the youngest directors A24 has ever worked with.

The main roles are held down by Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve. Ejiofor plays a man who discovers an unusual portal in the basement of a furniture store called Cap’n Clark’s Ottoman Empire. Reinsve is a psychologist whose patient mysteriously vanishes. Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, Lukita Maxwell, and Avan Jogia round out the primary cast, as all of their characters simply fall into this impossible space, only to discover that each hallway looks the same yet feels slightly different each time they circle back.

Parsons did an excellent job of keeping the adaption faithful to the original spirit. He avoids quick cuts and loud jump scares. Instead, he allows the camera to linger over empty corners and long vistas, creating the feeling that the rooms are actually alive, if in a rather empty way. The big question remains on screen: who or what built the Backrooms, and how does anyone get out once they’re inside? The final cut is 105 minutes long, and A24 intends to release it on May 29 this year.