YouTube series The Backrooms is becoming a theatrical movie, coming from A24, Atomic Monster, Chernin Entertainment, and 21 Laps, and it will be directed by its 17-year-old creator, Kane Parsons (“Kane Pixels“), with Roberto Patino writing the script. Now let’s back up and marvel at what this all means.
What a Movie for The Backrooms Means
The Backrooms is one of the most fascinating series to hit YouTube since, well, ever. Each video is made almost completely out of CG and uses a found-footage documentary style to create mysteries and horror stories in the titular “Backrooms,” and fans are utterly enraptured with its growing lore. The series went immediately viral upon its conception last year, garnering tens of millions of views. Each video is practically exploding with artfully crafted atmosphere, from the convincing and unnerving visuals to the superb audio design and even voice acting and motion capture. And the craziest part is that high school teenager Kane Parsons has made the entire series basically by himself. He is an extremely skilled young person.
The funniest thing about the announcement of a Backrooms movie is that Kane will apparently film the movie this summer, when he is off from school. A lot of names with weight are supporting the creation of the movie though, including Shawn Levy, Dan Cohen, Dan Levine, James Wan, Michael Clear, Alayna Glasthal, and Judson Scott, among others. That being said, we don’t actually know much of anything about the movie itself yet. We don’t know how much CG it will use compared to the YouTube series, we don’t know if the movie will be “canon” with the rest of the series, and we frankly don’t know anything about the plot at all.
“The Backrooms” originated as an internet creepypasta a few years ago — this notion that there exists a generic office complex that seems to stretch on forever, consisting of unnerving liminal spaces. Many creators have played with this concept since, in both film and even video games, but none of them have achieved the level of success that the Kane Pixels YouTube videos have. Now, Kane has his shot to direct a feature-length The Backrooms movie, and even if it ends up being a disappointment — it’s still an extraordinary feather in the cap of an awesomely talented teenager.
Start your journey with the Backrooms with Kane’s original video below:
Then spend the remainder of your day falling down the rest of the rabbit hole.
