A24's adaptation of Backrooms is leaning hard into physical dread rather than leaving the nightmare to computers alone. Director Kane Parsons says the production built roughly 30,000 square feet of practical Backrooms spaces, turning a viral internet idea into something actors and crew could actually get lost inside.
Why the set matters
The Backrooms mythology depends on repetition, emptiness, and the unsettling logic of familiar spaces stretched beyond reason. Parsons said the production used real-world construction to preserve that sensation, even running dozens of wallpaper tests to land on the exact oppressive shade of yellow that fans would recognize immediately.
That choice reflects a broader creative gamble. Instead of treating the movie as a glossy studio translation of internet lore, the filmmakers appear to be preserving the tactile, low-level unease that made Parsons' YouTube work explode in the first place.
From YouTube phenomenon to studio feature
Parsons first became known for transforming the Backrooms creepypasta into a visual language of liminal horror: empty corridors, droning fluorescent light, and the constant feeling that ordinary geometry has gone wrong. The move to a feature film with A24 could easily have diluted that identity, but the emphasis on massive practical builds suggests the opposite instinct.
The more real the maze feels on set, the harder it is for the finished film to slip into generic digital horror.
The production choice also adds to the mythology surrounding the movie itself. Backrooms has always been about being trapped inside a space that seems comprehensible until it suddenly is not. A giant practical set allows the film to turn that concept into a physical production method, not just a plot device.
What audiences are likely to see
If Parsons' comments are any guide, the movie is not trying to reinvent the Backrooms as a fast-cut blockbuster version of internet horror. It is trying to scale up the same lonely, disorienting experience that made the original videos work, only now with a much larger canvas and the resources to make the environment feel hauntingly tangible.