The trailer for a directorial debut by a teenage YouTuber sees a creepy internet theory come to life.
For those of you who don't spend your days exploring the deepest corners of the internet, the 'Backrooms' concept originates from a creepypasta shared to 4chan in 2019.
Accessed by exiting - or 'no-clipping' reality, the backrooms are characterised by endless empty rooms. The rooms are windowless, illuminated only by yellow artificial lights, and have a foreboding feeling to them.
The idea has since been expanded on numerous times, most notably by content creator Kane Parsons, who created an extensive YouTube web series titled Backrooms in 2022.
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Tens of millions of views later, Parsons' vision has now been transformed into a full-length feature film, in collaboration with A24.
Check out the first trailer below:
Titled Backrooms, the psychological horror stars 12 Years a Slave's Chiwetel Ejiofor and Sentimental Value actor Renate Reinsve as a therapist and patient who find themselves transported into an otherworldly dimension hidden at the back of a furniture store.
"I found a place," Ejiofor's character Clark explains to his therapist (Reinsve), acknowledging that his story sounds at best like the product of a creative writing class.
"I know how this sounds, but you've got to understand, it's massive in there," he adds.
Brushed off by his therapist, Clark is determined to gather 'proof' that such a liminal space exists, heading back with a camera and several friends in tow.
When his exploration of the liminal, Severence-esqe, maze runs into trouble, Reinsve's character is left with no other choice but to check out the backrooms for herself.
As for the depiction of the backrooms themselves, Parsons has kept to his original yellow-hued concept first exhibited in the YouTube series, including the endless corridors and an unsettling sensation that you're being watched.
But as the trailer continues, it becomes increasingly obvious that Clark and the other unfortunate souls who access the backrooms are not alone, with an unsettling background noise and humanoid figures appearing to linger in the corners.
Add in furniture which appears to be melting through the floors as well as bloodied, seriously creeped out characters, and it's pretty obvious that whatever lurks within the backrooms wasn't meant to be found.
Speaking about the project in an interview with Dazed, Parsons, now 20, revealed that while he couldn't give too much away from the project, he promised that it would expand upon the world created in his YouTube series.
"The Backrooms is not – and never has been – something that I think about as an internet trend or a meme. It's just a story I genuinely care about, with characters I genuinely care about," he said.
Backrooms premieres in select cinemas from 29 May 2026.
Topics: Entertainment, TV and Film, Film, Horror
Brenna Cooper