Backrooms, an Introduction

Image from Phillip Pyle's post¹.

As of writing this post, I have not seen the Backrooms movie (A24), produced by Kane Parsons, the creator of the YouTube channel Kane Pixel famously known for the videos, "Backrooms (Found Footage)²". However, I have seen his YouTube videos, along with other YouTube horror content with similar themes to the liminal space of Backrooms (Found Footage). Backrooms, now a major motion picture recently released to great fanfare. Backrooms opening weekend garnered a revenue of $118 Million³ against a budget of $10 Million⁴ set to make more while in theaters.

Kane Parsons is one of many Youtube creators (includes but not limited to Markiplier, Curry Barker from "that's a bad idea", and Critical Drinker to name a few) breaking into the "small screen" to the "big screen" finding success in the movie industry that's been stumbling for a long time. The movie industry continues to be plagued with high budgets, bankrupt creativity, and formulaic cash-grabs that include reboots, exhausting brands (Marvel, Disney), and nostalgia bait. To boot, these lackluster movies have unlikable characters, questionable storytelling, and absent moral compass with no direction resonating very little with audiences. Quality original content in the movie industry is few and far between where the audience is starved for original content. More importantly, the successes from these Youtubers further stress the audience's craving for original quality content in a fog of what seems like endless slop. To topit all these Youtubers have managed to revitalize the movie industry with very little resources. Understandably this is a different discussion and a little bit of a digression that I may explore further in another post, however, bringing this topic up provides some context to Backrooms. With that being said, let's return to the Backrooms...

"If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the Backrooms, where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in... God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you."¹

Let's clip into the Backrooms with NO SPOILERS!

LORE

12 May 2019: 4chan paranormal board /x/: An anonymous user prompted users, "post disquieting images that just feel 'off'", followed by a photograph of the "Backrooms"- characterized by an uncomfortable angle, with a room containing stale-yellow wallpaper illuminated with florescent ceiling lights. Where the room leads is ambiguous.

This 4chan post spawned countless images, videos, stories, and games that resemble the same uncomfortable environment. Content created in the theme of the Backrooms depict loneliness, dread, and paranoia from the ambiguous danger in the uniform labyrinth and ever presence of an always unknown thing lurking near by...

Kane Parsons ("Kane Pixels"), 16 years old at the time, inspired by the Backrooms subculture produced the series, "Backrooms (Found Footage)". The setting of the series is based in 1996 depicted by a group of adolescent friends making a movie. After accidentally falling over, the camera man is transported into the Backrooms. The POV⁵ is through the lens of the camera man, more appropriately the adolescent, coincidentally recording the attempt to escape the labyrinth. You never see the main character because the cinematography is captured in the style of a shaky handheld VHS camera as the POV⁵. The raw video style depicts the Backrooms and the namesake, "Found Footage" in such a fitting manner.

The series and each episode are short enough to be snack-able and binge-able yet long enough to tell a well-crafted narrative. In classic horror fashion, the "Backrooms (Found Footage)" also leaves enough of the terror for the audience to come up with on their own. The series on the Kane Pixels channel amassed a large following worldwide that eventually led to A24 picking it up; A24 intelligently having Kane Parsons at the helm (You can visit Kane Pixels official YouTube²).

Of course, Kane Parsons is not alone in producing "Backrooms" inspired content. Ever since the 4Chan post, other creators are continuously creating their own version of "Backrooms" with equally unsettling environments, for example, "Subliminal"⁶ a video game set in the "Backrooms" universe is set to release soon. All of these different interpretations organically expand the lore but also maintains the same eerie context. All of it really provides a great prerequisite should you decide to watch the major motion picture or in general, enjoy the horror genre.

To watch some content of the Backrooms, checkout the list...

BACKROOMS

• Please share if you have recommendations 😄.

KANE PIXELS

Backrooms (Found Footage)

RETURN TO RENDER

1 Year in the Backrooms (Found Footage Compilation)

VAPORAMA VISION

The Backrooms - The Dark Water Nightmare

The Backrooms - The Infinite Playground

STATIS [V]

The Backrooms - The Ocean of Sleeping Towers

VERSIONS

2026v.0.1.0: init

REFERENCES

1. Phillip Pyle's An Analysis of The Backrooms—Also Known as the Internet's Horror Rooms ↩ ↩²

2. YouTube Kane Parsons (Kane Pixels) ↩ ↩²

3. ‘Backrooms’ Scores $118M Global Opening as Kane Parsons Becomes Youngest Director to Top Box Office ↩

4. The Numbers ↩

5. Point of View (POV) ↩ ↩²

6. Subliminal Game ↩