A24 pulled back the curtain to The Backrooms, teasing an unsettling, must-see sci-fi horror movie from director Kane Parsons. Based on Parsons’s web series of the same name, The Backrooms follows a psychiatrist who ventures into an alternate, maze-like dimension to rescue a patient. The film stars Chiwetel Ejiofor (The Life of Chuck, Doctor Strange), Renate Reinvsve (Sentimental Value), Mark Duplass (Creep), Finn Bennett (A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms), Lukita Maxwell (Shrinking), and Avan Jogia (56 Days).
This horror movie is Parsons’ feature-film debut as a director, the youngest in A24’s history. However, The Backrooms has already presented itself as one of the most ambitious and promising horror movies of the year, not just because of its star-studded cast. The film is based on a horror franchise that Parsons helped popularize through years of online content, employing a distinctively terrifying style of filmmaking that will only be elevated in a big-budget feature.
The Backrooms franchise is already an internet sensation
The Backrooms already has a rich mythology with a devoted fanbase, so Parsons and A24 have the ingredients for a successful horror film. The web series follows members of the Async research institute as they explore the titular rooms, encountering several anomalies and creatures along the way.
Even without showing scary monsters, The Backrooms evokes our primal fear of the unknown through its odd, isolating setting. Though it looks like an ordinary office building, you can tell something is terribly wrong there. It should be impossible for such an empty, infinite space to exist. The fact that there is seemingly no escape would make being in these rooms almost suffocating.
The series is itself based on a popular 4chan creepypasta, which inspired people to generate their own stories about the Backrooms and its different levels. Over the years, this online urban legend spawned a widespread fandom that reached all corners of the Internet. It even served as an inspiration for the hit Apple TV series, Severance, according to show creator Dan Erickson.
The Backrooms’ already large fanbase helped launch Parsons’s web series to online stardom, gaining millions of subscribers and tens of millions of views. This eventually caught the attention of A24 and major Hollywood producers such as Shawn Levy (Stranger Things, Deadpool & Wolverine) and James Wan (The Conjuring, Insidious).
Parsons’s story as a filmmaker is not uncommon. We have witnessed a growing trend of popular YouTube personalities branching out into indie horror movies, as seen with Chris Stuckmann’s Shelby Oaks and Markiplier’s Iron Lung. A24 was already part of this trend in 2023 when it released Danny and Michael Philippou’s hit feature, Talk to Me.
The Backrooms will go in a bold new direction
The teaser for A24’s The Backrooms suggests that the feature will capture the look and feel of Parsons’s web series with some production values. The trailer evokes the source material’s narrative style, focusing on the dread and unease of such vast, shifting space without giving too much away.
While Parsons’s original short films were presented in a found-footage style, his feature appears to lean toward a more traditional, cinematic approach with crisp visuals and steady, controlled camerawork. At the same time, it presents the franchise’s trademark giant yellow maze, making it a fresh, immersive, and satisfying viewing experience for fans.
Parsons has proven himself a talented filmmaker with The Backrooms web series, and this was all before he turned 20. The wunderkind director created plenty of great scares with his web series on such a minimal budget. With such a massive fanbase and resources now at his disposal, Parsons is geared to make The Backrooms one of the most successful horror movies of 2026.
Even those not familiar with the Backrooms franchise will likely buy a ticket after seeing A24 attached to the production. The indie studio has garnered massive acclaim from moviegoers over the past decade, particularly for horror films like The Witch, Hereditary, The Lighthouse, Midsommar, and X. A scary picture with the studio’s logo plastered on it should attract plenty of people from the horror community.
It is too early to say how The Backrooms will turn out in theaters based on the film’s first teaser. At this point, it’s safe to say that Parsons and A24 have a lot more to show us in the coming months. The source material’s large mythos and effective scares are made for Hollywood, and what we’ve seen so far is just the beginning. Many more terrors are waiting in the Backrooms.
Watch The Backrooms in theaters on May 29, 2026.
