WHAT WE’RE WATCHING: Backrooms: The horror beneath everyday liminal spaces in Kane Parsons’ debut feature

Fresh off those Oscar wins, horror movies are continuing to gather audiences in 2026. Born of the online phenomenon, Backrooms is another critical and commercial success.

Everyone has experienced a liminal space at some point: An empty corridor at an airport, a dimly lit street at night, or a school playground obscured by fog. It’s a location that, by all descriptions, is unremarkable yet invokes a strong sense of unease.

New film Backrooms is full of unease, but it’s far from being unremarkable. Adapted from a web series of short videos, helmed by said videos’ creator, and distributed by A24, this horror outing successfully delivers on both style and substance.

Though the serving portion slightly skews more towards style, it nonetheless succeeds thanks to a spellbinding premise about what happens when you “noclip” – to glitch through solid objects, like in video game – and find yourself in reality’s backlot.

The film follows Clark (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor), a down-on-his-luck furniture store owner who attends regular sessions with his therapist, Dr Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve). One night, upon investigating an electrical issue in his shop’s basement, Clark stumbles through a literal (yet metaphorical) hole in the wall to discover an endless series of rooms, occupied by random objects and vacant of any people.

Curious to explore, Clark enlists the help of his assistant manager Kat (Lukita Maxwell) and her boyfriend Bobby (Finn Bennett). But the backrooms quickly prove to be a very unsafe space, and soon Mary finds herself venturing in as well, discovering what happens when the places you remember start to forget themselves.

Backrooms continues the trend of YouTubers and content creators spearheading theatrical projects to great success (see Chris Stuckmann’s Shelby Oaks, Markiplier’s Iron Lung, and, most recently, Curry Barker’s Obsession).

Backrooms marks the feature film directorial debut of Kane Parsons who, over the past few years, has produced a series of online shorts about the subject, and ended up with an extended universe’s worth of storytelling.

This should not be a turn-off for film viewers as Backrooms stands confidently as its own outing. No need to catch up on the videos to know what’s happening, but longtime fans should be satisfied with the film expanding on existing lore. (Upon the credits rolling, this reviewer was privy to a young man behind him saying to his friends, “This changes everything.”)

Parsons could very easily have made an extended YouTube video by deploying tactics such as a found footage perspective and obscure