Having already grossed more than $10 million in previews, “Backrooms,” the latest feature from A24 and the debut directorial effort of 20-year-old Kane Parson, is already posed to be a box office hit.
Out in theaters nationwide now, the horror film, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, Avan Jogia, Lukita Maxwell and more, follows a therapist who must enter into the backrooms — a collection of liminal, eerie spaces originally inspired by 4chan memes — to find a patient who has disappeared.
But long before “Backrooms” made it to the big screen, Parsons was creating a creepy series of found footage-inspired YouTube videos of the same name. He was just 16 when he began creating the videos, which follow a group of fictional researchers attempting to explore and study the liminal spaces. Each video, ranging in length from a minute and a half to 45 minutes, shows a different part of the undiscovered areas in grainy footage. Since its creation, the 22-video web series has accumulated more than 25 million views; Parsons’ account has more than three million subscribers.
For the feature film adaptation, Parsons penned the script alongside Will Soodik, known for writing episodes of “Westworld,” “Ash vs Evil Dead” and “Homeland.”
Whether you want to prepare yourself for a viewing of “Backrooms” in the theater or you’ve already seen the film and want to keep the spookiness going, the series can be watched in its entirety on Parsons’ YouTube chanel, Kane Pixels.
Catch up — or discover — all of the “Backrooms” lore here.
