Backrooms: Internet horror will come for us all

With media like this being so popular, the death of the internet is not yet upon us.

Backrooms
Written by Will Soodik
Directed by Kane Parsons
2026

In recent years, much has been made about the slow deterioration of the internet, with negative experiences online now beginning to outweigh any positive impact that constant, ubiquitous digital connections have had on people’s lives and society as a whole. There is definitely something to these claims, with what was once a sprawling, democratized atmosphere mostly being consolidated into a few sites that are all controlled by massive corporations owned by billionaires who want to remake the world in their twisted image, as well as AI slop taking up so much bandwidth that nobody knows what is real anymore. But the idea that there is little of value left online is somewhat overblown, given that there are still many thriving online communities that are coming up with interesting, creative ideas that sometimes manage to escape the bounds of the internet and make an impact on the wider culture.

While the Backrooms movie is the latest example of this, it’s just one of many instances in which regular people have been doing interesting things that have gained well-deserved recognition. I’ve mentioned several of those here, such as the Dungeon Crawler Carl novels, which began as stories serialized online; the book We Used to Live Here, which started as a series of “creepypasta” stories posted on Reddit; and the mind-bending sci-fi novel There Is No Antimimetics Division, which grew out of the SCP Foundation, a wiki-based storytelling site. I may have even forgotten a few examples, and this is really just scratching the surface of the cool forms of art and expression that can be found if one knows where to look.

The issue that can sometimes arise when something that is popular online becomes available to people who were not already aware of its intricacies is how to balance the needs of different audiences. People who are already fans may not want to go back to an entry-level version of a story, and they can be alienated if too much of what they liked in the past has been changed. But at the same time, the purpose of a movie, TV show, or other form of mass media is to attract as wide an audience as possible, so if something is only for the fans, everyone else is going to be left scratching their heads and wondering why they should care.

That can be a difficult needle for creators to thread, especially in an era where certain types of outspoken fan communities can make people’s lives miserable if they decide that they haven’t been pandered to enough (which is one of those negative aspects of the internet mentioned above). It does seem like certain communities are more welcoming than others though, especially those that skew younger and haven’t been taken over by toxic nerd culture. Fortunately, the horror community (or certain pockets of it, anyway) tends to be one of those, and with something like the Backrooms, the excitement of shared storytelling and diving into weird lore may encourage people to be more open about the types of stories that can be told.

All of this is to say that the Backrooms movie does a pretty great job of introducing its concept, delivering all sorts of weirdness and hinting at additional depths that may be explored. Director Kane Parsons didn’t originate the Backrooms concept, but he gained enough acclaim making YouTube videos about the idea that he got the chance to expand his work to feature length. Even though he’s pretty young, what he’s come up with is strikingly assured, featuring some great production design, some good performances by well-known actors, and an excellent sense of ominousness whenever anyone ventures into the eponymous nether region.

I don’t think any prior knowledge of the Backrooms is really necessary to enjoy the movie. About all I knew going in was the basic concept of the online phenomenon, which originally started with an anonymous post on 4chan in which someone shared a picture of a creepily empty office featuring fluorescent lighting and empty rooms with sickly yellow wallpaper, along with a short paragraph about the possibility of stepping out of reality and becoming trapped in an endless series of corridors that may be populated by freaky extra-dimensional creatures. People online ran with this idea, coming up with all sorts of different levels to this dimension and the horrors that people may experience when trapped there, and apparently Parsons was the most successful at coming up with good visuals and extending the original idea into something effective enough to build a pretty big fanbase.

While the creepiness of a liminal space that is lurking just outside of reality and threatening to escape its bounds is a pretty good concept, and it might make for plenty of effective short videos, the question remained about whether it was enough to support an actual movie on its own. The story Parsons and company have come up with works well enough to give us just enough to care about before weird stuff starts happening. Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as Clark, the owner of a struggling furniture store with a goofy pirate theme who has some serious emotional issues that he hasn’t yet worked out, despite regular sessions with his therapist, Mary (Renate Reinsve). When Clark discovers an apparent portal (it’s really just a wall that looks solid but lets people pass right through it) in the basement of his store that leads to a series of creepy yellow hallways, he becomes obsessed with exploring them, apparently unconcerned about the ominous creatures that seem to be lurking in its shadows.

Really, that’s about all there is to the plot, although some of the horrors of the Backrooms do play into Clark’s tenuous mental state, and Mary manages to get trapped there as well in an experience that probably forces her to consider every bit of psychological theory she has learned. The real meat of the movie is the exploration of this weird space and the inexplicable things found within. It’s not just an endless series of empty corridors; there are objects that seem like degraded replicas of items that can be found in reality, including pieces of furniture that are fused together or wrap around corners in ways that look like tangible versions of glitchy video game graphics. Everything is strange and unsettling, even before unseen beasts start moving within the shadows and stalking characters through this seemingly endless realm.

Parsons also deftly moves between found footage style segments that are akin to what one would expect on YouTube, with shaky handheld cameras providing a sense of visceral unease as characters run through increasingly freaky environments, and slick, professionally-shot scenes that appear to have been filmed on real sets, even as the action moves through terrain that should be impossible. It’s as good of a realization of the Backrooms as one could hope for, providing a memorable horror setting that develops in increasingly disturbing directions as the film goes on.

While it’s unlikely that there’s anyone who needs my seal of approval before checking out this thing that all the kids are excited about, I’m happy to report that this is a really solid horror movie. While there are certainly some references that went right over the heads of those of us who aren’t steeped in Backrooms lore, there’s nothing alienating that should make anyone feel like this movie isn’t for them (at least, nothing that would be outside the bounds of horror, which is supposed to be creepy and upsetting). Sometimes a popular thing also turns out to be good, and as long as the more elderly and less chronically online members of the audience are willing to go on a journey to an unexplainable and threatening dimension, they should have a good time.