The movie theater was supposed to be dead, according to pessimists, or at least surviving on a permanent diet of corporate superhero life-support. Yet this summer, the loudest buzz in cinema isn’t coming from a legacy studio franchise, but from the infinite, sickly yellow corridors of a digital mythos. Backrooms has done something near-miraculous: it has dragged Gen Z and ultra-young audiences away from their phones and into dark theaters around the world. For anyone who cares about the survival of the multiplex, that alone is a triumph.
The guy behind this box office explosion is Kane Parsons. At just 21 years old, Parsons has become the youngest filmmaker in history to secure a number-one hit at the global box office, with the film pulling in a staggering $262 million as of mid-June 2026. The project is an expansion of his viral 2022 YouTube series: a 24-part internet phenomenon that Parsons originally built from his bedroom using Blender and Adobe After Effects – tipping my hat for anyone that is so driven. It spun an eerie, lore-heavy web about a fictional science group, bizarre earthquakes, and a liminal, maze-like office building existing just outside our reality.
A24 recognized the internet’s collective obsession, bypassed the traditional gatekeepers, and pitched Parsons directly to turn his found-footage short films into a feature-length horror movie. While Hollywood’s recent strikes delayed its arrival, the wait only hyper-charged the anticipation. Backrooms has shattered records for A24, officially dethroning Marty Supreme as the most profitable acquisition and distribution hit in the studio’s history.
The big screen adaptation, co-written by Parsons and Westworld alumnus Will Soodik, grounds the abstract internet lore into a surprisingly deep psychological narrative. The plot centers on Clark, a newly divorced furniture store owner played by the brilliant – and criminally underrated – Chiwetel Ejiofor. After noticing strange power outages and bizarre, diagonal button alignments inside his electrical box, Clark discovers a literal tear in reality behind a wall in his basement. He ventures into the unknown, tracking the roars and taps of an unseen creature, before returning to process the trauma with his psychologist, Mary (Renate Reinsve). When Clark suddenly vanishes into the void, Mary has no choice but to step through the same portal to save him. The question soon becomes: who needs saving more Clark or Mary? And who is it that can still save themselves?
The film thrives on the incredible chemistry of its cast. Ejiofor is a true star of both stage and screen – a fiercely intelligent actor who portrays this exciting, mysterious character with both nuance and finesse. Reinsve, who recently cemented her Hollywood status with Sentimental Value after breaking out in The Worst Person in the World, is equally captivating. Watching these powerhouse European actors outshine their American colleagues raises questions not only about agents / managers and screen presence but also about US acting schools and how high their bars are set.
Visually, the film transitions from the grainy constraints of YouTube into an ambitious, physical space. Production designer Danny Vernette, art director Alan Derksen, and set decorator Trevor Johnston constructed a monstrous, 30,000-square-foot yellow rundown office / hospital-esque labyrinth for the production in Canada. The set was reportedly so vast and disorienting that crew members genuinely got lost during morning call times.
The resulting atmosphere brings to mind a cocktail of cinematic touchstones: the paranoid entrapment of Peter Watkins’ Punishment Park (1971), the mind-bending architectural traps of the Portal video game series, the existential dread of Synecdoche, New York, and the distinct, magical surrealism of David Lynch’s Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks. Costume designer Mica Kayde leans beautifully into a 1990s analog aesthetic, think Ejiofor in a memorable pink jacket and Reinsve being effortlessly stylish in elegant, pencil skirts and chic little blouses.
My absolute favorite sequence is when Mary first steps into the maze. The sound design drops into an oppressive, hollow hum, and the screen treats us to a gorgeous, minimalist composition: a bare piece of wall, a door outlined in blue tape, and Mary’s long shadow stretching across the yellow wallpaper. It is pure German Expressionism wrapped in modern dread, topped by Renate’s natural, strong presence.
However, the transition from internet phenomenon to traditional feature cannot be entirely seamless. The film’s dialogue – while successful in capturing an authentic Gen Z vocabulary – occasionally relies on heavy-handed plot devices and voiceovers early on, which lack subtext. Furthermore, the film’s commitment to its found-footage roots leads to some mid-movie turbulence.
During a prolonged, intensely shaky VHS sequence where characters run while frantically swapping the camera, the visuals trade cinematic composition for impulse-driven chaos. Frankly, I struggled not to throw up at one point, the hyper-turbulent POV mimics an old-school, late-’90s Harry Potter computer game rather than cinema.
Yet, despite whispers from critics that a first-time director couldn’t have managed this scale alone, Backrooms represents the ultimate beauty of collaborative storytelling. A24 smartly surrounded Parsons with the elite creative team behind Longlegs, including DP Jeremy Cox and editor Greg Ng. Combined with the indie-veteran presence of Mark Duplass in the cast – whose own inspiring career trajectory from a filmmaker shooting shorts in a kitchen to supporting the community through platforms like Seed&Spark feels like a match made in heaven with this project’s DIY ethos – Backrooms proves that great cinema is a team sport.
I appreciate that Backrooms – mostly – refuses to cater to cheap, crowd-pleasing jump scares. It is a lucid, atmospheric, and highly sophisticated experiment executed on a modest sub-$10 million budget – a feat that has already earned the public praise of Steven Spielberg. Alongside other brilliant debuts from young directors this season, like Curry Barker’s Obsession, this film proves that the future of cinema belongs to self-taught creators who master the art of storytelling and know their target audience very well. Go to the movies, support independent vision, and enjoy the ride.
~ by Dora Endre ~
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