Everything To Know About Upcoming Movie Backrooms

After the initial release getting delayed, Backrooms, a psychological horror, is making its way to the theatres on June 12.

Directed by 20-year-old YouTuber and film director Kane Parsons, Backrooms, is about to redefine what the future of horror films looks like. With the opening week garnering $81 million in domestic sales for the youngest film director on the A24 roster, the film stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, and Mark Duplass.

While the film is gearing up for an international release, it has already joined a list of horror films that in recent years have been the most successful films equally appreciated by the public.

Last year, Ryan Coogler’s Oscar-winning film Sinners racked up $370 million in the box office; several other films including Get Out, Nope, Weapons, more have been critically lauded, too. The list also included another Gen Z director Curry Barker (26) whose Obsession—a supernatural psychological horror film—uses an antique, magical novelty toy called the ‘One Wish Willow’ to make an unrequited crush fall in love with the protagonist.

The rise of horror as a popular genre also suggests its dynamic treatment of the story by merging other subgenres like psychology, comedy, and more to connect with the audiences.

So, what makes Backrooms so popular right now?

What is the Film Backrooms About?

Written by Will Soodik and directed by Kane Parsons, Backrooms revolves around a strange doorway which appears in the basement of a furniture showroom randomly.

Originally, a web series created by Parsons and inspired by the fictional backrooms, that was invented on the internet in a 2019 thread by Creepypasta on the imageboard website called 4chan. The Backrooms are usually portrayed as an impossibly large extradimensional complex of empty rooms, accessed by exiting reality. Considered as the best-known examples of the liminal space aesthetics, the Internet has expanded the concept as ‘levels’ or layers that are interconnected and as spaces where hostile creatures and entities inhibit. 

In the film, this idea is explored through a furniture store owner Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and his therapist Mary Kline’s (Renate Reinsve) discovery of a dimension of seemingly endless liminal spaces accessed through the basement of the store. 

Beyond the doorway, is a dimly lit room where nothing but furniture is piled up at the Centre and various voices speak foreign languages over a fuzzy loudspeaker. The trailer depicts Clark bringing some company to this room after telling his therapist about it.

"There's a lot of simplicity in the setup that preys on the anxiety people have around the stage of industrialization we're at," Parsons told the New York Times, speaking about the film's minimalist concept in an interview published May 29. 

"The world is becoming increasingly atomized and sort of lonely," he continued.

"We have so much available to us now—at least in this part of the world—yet it feels like all the stuff we have means less and less." 

Backrooms by Kane Parsons is releasing in India on June 12, 2026.