It’s been a good year for horror, one that has seen the genre earn critical acclaim and deliver near-unheard of box office success. The latter refers primarily to Curry Barker’s Obsession, which is the first of two movies in May directed by filmmakers who got their start on YouTube. The second is Backrooms by Kane Parsons, the 20-year-old, first-time director whose viral web series serves as the inspiration for A24’s latest horror project.

The lore is deep with this one – the Backrooms began as a viral 4Chan post that morphed into a creepypasta until 2022, when Parsons released his own series and popularized the concept further. There’s no central story to the Backrooms, though Parsons’ videos deepen the mystery with a company investigating the liminal space. But the movie itself becomes an interesting proposition in this context.

How do you tell a cohesive story in a world that goes on forever? And how do you translate that analog horror to the big screen? Through a mixture of handheld footage, meticulously designed sets, and a few twists, Parsons manages to construct a mostly coherent story that gets under the skin, not because of its in-your-face thrills, but because of the patient way it explores the quieter side of fear.

Backrooms Deals In Quiet Terror

Backrooms follows Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a deeply depressed furniture store owner who spends his evenings drinking liquor straight from the bottle and lying on one of the many display beds, watching an old television on the cavernous showroom floor. His wife, Barbara, has kicked him out, and customers rarely, if ever, even come into the store. It’s a solitary existence, one likely to drive anyone mad.

He sees a therapist, Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve), who tries to make him see the reality of things, like why Barbara left him or how he may have a drinking problem. But any self reflection is stunted by the discovery of the Complex (another word for the Backrooms), an endless space Clark finds hiding behind one of the walls of the store. Discarded furniture stands in a pile in the center of the first room he enters. As he goes deeper, even more items are found in the space, their origins unknown.

Instead of expressing fear at this discovery, Clark is excited by the prospect of what he’s found – think Justin Long discovering the basement of his Barbarian Airbnb, but with psychosis instead of douchebaggery. From there, Parsons is able to explore the world that started it all, and it’s perhaps the most exciting part of Backrooms. His camera, aided by cinematographer Jeremy Cox, moves slowly through the spaces, often still as Clark, Mary, and the Complex’s other visitors, Bobby (Finn Bennett) and Kat (Lukita Maxwell), take in what they’re seeing.

In addition to being a therapist, Mary is also a successful, if lonely, author; her self-help books and tapes are advertised on television alongside Clark’s furniture commercial. It stands in stark contrast to Ejiofor’s cocky swaggering in his pirate persona. Mary’s soothing voice talks of loops and windows, opening them and peering through, moving into new spaces and discovering new worlds to become someone, or something, new.

Clark is resistant to change, or maybe doesn’t believe that he needs to change at all. He doesn’t understand why his wife Barbara kicked him out (alcoholism plays a role), and he doesn’t understand why Mary doesn’t consider him an architect (it’s because he runs a furniture store). Who Clark and Mary think they are is just as important as who they really are, and the Backrooms talk back to them in ways that will morph perceptions of themselves and of their sense of place.

This, however, makes it hard to feel like we fully know Mary and Clark. The Backrooms are the real main character of the film, and rightfully so. But still, the script by Will Soodik (an alum of Westworld and Homeland, among others) is thin on characterization, even as it gives Mary a backstory with interesting thematic connections to the plot. Like the Complex itself, Backrooms is constantly morphing and twisting into something new as it goes on.

There are plenty of nods to Parsons’ videos, including the presence of Async, but the film really strives to examine the psychology of its characters in a way that it isn’t fully equipped to do. Even when it falters, though, Backrooms is still an effective horror film, dealing in quiet terror over abject horror. In a world where fear is constantly thrown in our faces, having to look for it, and wanting to do so in the first place, can be just as disturbing.

Backrooms releases in theaters nationwide on Friday, May 29.

Release Date

May 27, 2026

Runtime

110 minutes

Director

Kane Parsons

Writers

Will Soodik

Producers

Chris Ferguson, Dan Cohen, Dan Levine, James Wan, Jenno Topping, Kori Adelson, Michael Clear, Osgood Perkins, Peter Chernin, Roberto Patino, Shawn Levy