Kane Parsons started uploading Backrooms videos on YouTube at 16 years old. He is 20 now, and A24 is releasing his feature debut on May 29. That trajectory alone is one of the most remarkable stories in recent filmmaking. A teenager making found footage videos in his bedroom, picked up by the most respected indie studio in the business, now getting his first feature into theaters with real movie stars attached.
Critics just saw it, and the early reactions suggest A24 has a hit on their hands. The LA Times called it "horror stripped to its essentials" and "a nightmare with its own weather." That second phrase is the kind of description that sticks with you. It tells you Parsons has not just made a scary movie. He has built an atmosphere so thick and specific that it feels like its own living environment.
The production details are wild. They built over 30,000 square feet of practical Backrooms sets. Physical, real spaces that the actors moved through. People reportedly got lost on set, which is either a great behind the scenes anecdote or a sign that the production design team understood the assignment on a level that borders on obsessive. In an era where most horror films lean heavily on CGI environments, the commitment to practical sets is the kind of decision that separates films that feel real from films that feel manufactured.
Chiwetel Ejiofor stars, which immediately elevates the material. This is an actor who was nominated for an Oscar for 12 Years a Slave, who has consistently chosen projects that challenge him. His presence in a Backrooms movie tells you the script gave him something worth showing up for. Renate Reinsve plays his therapist who follows him into the Backrooms, and if you saw The Worst Person in the World, you know she brings an emotional intelligence to every role that most actors cannot touch.
What fascinates me about this project is the origin story. The Backrooms started as a creepypasta, an internet horror concept that went viral because it tapped into something primal. The fear of being lost in an endless, liminal space with no exit and no logic. Parsons was the one who gave that concept a visual language on YouTube, and now he is translating it to the big screen with A24 backing and a cast that has no business being in a movie made by a 20 year old. The fact that first reactions are this strong makes me think we might be watching a major filmmaker announce himself.
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