Explore the Backrooms (2026) this May
Photo courtesy of Model by Huuxloc/Wikimedia Commons
Any photo of the Backrooms hinges upon feeling equal parts familiar and uneasy, usually appearing as an unending, carpeted corridor with bright fluorescent lights. It appears that the Backrooms (2026) film will remain loyal to this idea.
Many people growing up in the 2010s become very familiar with “creepypastas.” These were meant to be spooky stories or photos that people would stumble upon while browsing the Internet with some sort of urban legend attached that would make whoever found them wonder for a moment “Is this real?” Some of the most famous of these creepypastas have become pretty recognizable names, such as Slender Man, Jeff the Killer, and of course, the Backrooms.
The Backrooms were a bit of a special cast in creepypasta scenes. It was not (usually) made up of heavily edited photos or supernatural beings; anything could be part of the Backrooms. According to an article on Vice, the idea for the Backrooms first got their start on a 4chan thread that was compiling a series of “disquieting images that just felt ‘off’,” to which the most famous interpretation of the Backrooms was posted. It was a series of rooms leading off past the parameters of the photo, with yellow walls and bright fluorescent lights.
This photo would apparently capture the attention of many. According to an article on ABC News, it would be reposted and given the name “The Backrooms,” with a caption describing such a place as “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.”
One thing led to another, as they often do in forums, and the idea of the Backrooms spread like wildfire into an Internet urban legend. People began to add their own twisted spins to the concept, such as multiple levels, possible ways to escape. Or even entities that prowled the hallways which the unfortunate souls who found themselves inside must hide from. Over time, the Backrooms began to be seen as a glitch in reality, some sort of area beyond reality people found themselves stuck in by random accidents, like getting to an out-of-bounds area in a video game. However, through all the interpretations, images that just did not seem quite right remained the core of the Backrooms—completely normal areas that gave an unexplainable feeling of uneasiness.
After cementing its fame as one the most popular creepypastas out there, the Backrooms have apparently earned a film based around it. According to IMDb, Backrooms (2026) is being produced by the studio A24, and is being both written and directed by Kane Parsons. Kane Parsons’s involvement is particularly exciting, as he is partly responsible for the popularity of the Backrooms creepypasta.
On Parsons’s YouTube channel, Kane Pixels, he created the series The Backrooms (2022-2025). This was a series of found footage videos which depicted the creation of the Backrooms through some sort of government experiment, as well as the experiences of those who were trapped inside wandering through endless corridors and hiding from strange looking entities that waited inside. The Backrooms (2022-2025) series captured the mysterious, uneasy feeling that the Backrooms was always supposed to represent perfectly, and it is very likely Parsons will be able to replicate this feeling for the movie. An article on The Hollywood Reporter confirms that the film “adapts the YouTube series that Parsons began uploading to YouTube as a teen in early 2022.”
By the looks of the official trailer, Backrooms (2026) will feature a combination of third person objective point of view—observing the characters go through the film from afar, as is the case with most films—as well first person point of view, with the audience seeing the action of the film through a camera the characters seem to be carrying with them. This will allow the film to explore the characters in detail, as well allow the audience to feel the same uneasy feeling of being in the backrooms themselves that the original YouTube series was known for.
According to IMDb, the main cast of this film consists of Chiwetel Ejiofor as the character Clark who seems to first discover the Backrooms, and Renate Reinsve as Dr. Mary Kline, who appears to be Clark’s therapist and must enter Backrooms to look for Clark. The film was also co-written by Will Soodik, who seems to have previously worked on episodes of series such as Homeland (2011-2020) and Westworld (2016-2022), according to IMDb.
Backrooms (2026) will hit theatres very soon, releasing on May 29, 2026. It looks like it is going to be a fantastic film, staying true to the Internet urban legend it spawned from, and in the control of a director with a clear vision. It is shaping to be a must-see film for anyone who ever stumbled upon a photo that was not quite right, and wondered what was hiding within the strangely familiar halls.