With studios banking on fandoms to power ticket sales, will the internet show up for Backrooms?
A few interesting things have happened since we first looked at the phenomenon surrounding A24’s Backrooms, the directorial debut from 20-year-old Kane Parsons, which is based on the expansive series he started in 2022 at the age of 16. First was Michael continuing to decimate the box office — it’s brought in nearly $800 million globally at the time of this writing, proving that massive fandoms will come in droves if the content is aimed right. The other thing was Curry Barker becoming a new horror sensation with his wildly successful feature-length directorial debut, Obsession, which turned a $750,000 budget into a potential $80 million at the box office. Fans of the film, about what happens when a man wishes to make his crush fall in love with him, have been so hype about seeing this new horror flick in theaters that word of the film’s upcoming digital release has resulted in angry tweets about making sure it’s seen in theaters, which has helped calm the Michael Mania that’s consumed the zeitgeist.
All of that said, Backrooms, which is in theaters now, is entering an interesting time at the box office, one where dedicated fandoms are eager to hit the theaters and devour original stories. (Initial reports of the potential Backrooms box office have grown from $40 million to $50 million to closer to $65 million, depending on who you ask.) Parsons’ debut will have to make sure that two things go right for it: 1) the online denizens of the Backrooms showing up to theaters, and 2) Parsons making a film that bridges the gap from a fleshed-out exploration of a seemingly infinite, constantly changing environment into a palatable film. While it’s too early to tell on the former, let’s dive into the latter.
In the YouTube series, Parsons brought the Backrooms to life, a dizzying maze of yellow-hued, exit-less rooms, each complete with its own set of unorthodox room layouts. Venture off too far into the Backrooms, and you can encounter everything from a series of confusing pools to ballpits to actual monsters, many of which will chase you and are likely the cause of the horrifying noises you heard. Parsons’ series followed a company, Async, which was studying the limitless liminal space. There were no “main characters” aside from the employees mentioned, posing an intriguing problem for Parsons to overcome: How do you create a film about a place?
For Backrooms, Parsons is directing from a script by Will Soodik (Westworld, Ash vs. Evil Dead) that, yes, takes us deep into the Backrooms but focuses on a particular story. Backrooms finds furniture store owner Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) struggling to make ends meet as he picks up the pieces of his failed relationship. His therapist, Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve), has been working with Clark to get to the root of the relationship at the heart of his issues, but when Clark discovers that one of the walls in his furniture store is a portal to the Backrooms, his focus shifts completely.
While reportedly mapping out the entire film in Blender before getting to set, Parsons and his team built a 30,000-square-foot soundstage to help bring the Backrooms he envisioned to life. Much of the film is spent with Ejiofor and company exploring expansive spaces, usually in terror but also in wonder. Every new change becomes a new thread of the quilt to unravel, but unraveling loose threads can be risky business if you aren’t careful. And it’s that kind of “quiet horror” that these liminal-space-drenched tales embody. The true terror is in the intense anticipation for the reveal of what’s around the corner; it can be nothing, or it can be the thing that throws you off the edge of your seat.
It also helps that the performances, particularly from Ejiofor and Reinsve, help ground the film. No matter how deceiving or out of place a particular corridor can be, traversing the Backrooms is one of the best parts of Backrooms, with each expedition bringing Clark more familiar with the space and its true horror. With Parsons handling the score for his Backrooms YouTube series, it’s good to see that he linked with Edo Van Breemen to bring the proper soundscape to the film, full of wonder and warning, full of ambient tones that could be filed under “An Eerie Sense of Comfort.” There are entire stretches where, true to the YouTube series’ form, viewers are sat in a first-person perspective, documenting their progress while wandering through each new space.
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Now, for everything this film is, what it isn’t is an explanation dump. You don’t need to know about the YouTube series or the company Async to get into Backrooms, but if you are deep into the lore and are looking for concrete answers for four-year-old mysteries, it’s best to wait and see if the box office no-clips into the Backrooms and returns $65 million richer. Parsons himself has hinted that this film is the “first part” of the story, saying that making a Backrooms series would be a “dream scenario.”
“I think that’s the most practical way to narratively get what you want,” Parsons told Polygon. “But obviously, a series is a whole thing. So it won’t be immediate, it won’t be ‘snap your fingers and it’s here.’ And in general, the series, in my mind, is not determined by its genre label. The way I think of it is definitely a lot more of an interpersonal sort of drama built on top of a supernatural techno-thriller. That’s more the space I feel comfortable in.”
A return to the Backrooms for Parsons and A24 (and James Wan, Osgood Perkins, Peter Chernin, Shawn Levy, and all of the other industry vets who attached themselves as producers to Parsons’ debut) hinges on whether Backrooms can engender what Michael and Obsession have: a dedicated, paying fanbase who will not only show up for opening weekend, but will word-of-mouth their friends into taking a trip to the Backrooms.
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