From Creepypasta to Cinemas: The Backrooms

By: Parisa  Nosrati Edited by: Tessa Reiner

Long before A24 began promoting the upcoming Backrooms film, the concept existed as a niche fragment of internet folklore, stemming from an unsettling image of an empty office space with eerie yellow lighting posted on 4chan. The caption for this picture suggested that one could end up in this liminal space, and the image led to a piece of “creepypasta.” This was based on the idea of human-made spaces that lack humanity. Now, the idea is being brought to the big screen, and audiences are excited but skeptical to see how it will turn out.

In February, A24 released a teaser with no characters, plot, or music–just the camera moving down through the backrooms. A second trailer was recently released that offers the audience more details. The trailer consists of a man telling his therapist about the backrooms, and it captures an isolating feeling.

For many, this is not the first time they have heard of the story of the backrooms. Liminality is a term coined over one hundred years ago to mean an in-between place of a transformation. It  has shifted over time to mean the uncomfortable feeling of in-between spaces, and became its own niche aesthetic. The original picture of the backrooms emerged as a reply to someone on 4chan asking for a space that looked and felt wrong. Then came the famous picture of the beige walls, damp carpet and fluorescent lights that are known as the original backrooms.

The caption of the picture conveyed that one could “no-clip” out of reality, like in a video game, giving the impression that we are in some kind of simulation. After this picture, the story of the backrooms became a creepypasta, or a scary story that has been recycled and added onto over time so much that its origins are forgotten.

The backrooms became popularized in 2022 when Kane Parsons made a web series based on the idea at just seventeen years old. The found footage film consists of a 1990s indie filmmaker who falls into the backrooms and is followed by an entity composed of wires. The film blew up and became instantly popular as a new type of horror focused on psychological isolation.

Due to the corporate setting and the nonhuman creature, many analyzed the backrooms as a reflection of how uncomfortable we feel within the modern capitalist society. This transforms the typical fantastical type of horror into a feeling of discomfort that many find scarier than concrete scary creatures.

Now, we’ll be able to experience this story on the big screen, with Parsons himself writing and directing the film. A24 pitched the movie to him a while ago but it was put on hold due to the Hollywood strike. The film has finally been made and has a found footage aspect similar to the web series, as Clark, the protagonist, gets a film crew for proof of the backrooms’s existence.

A24 is famous for their marketing for films, and they have already begun promoting this film in a creative manner. They released an advertisement featuring Clark as “Cap’n Clark” promoting his furniture store. There is also a number flashing on the screen, and when you call the number, it's an empty noise. However, when the number is put through a fax machine, a poster prints out that features an address. The address on the flyer leads to an abandoned CVS pharmacy, and audiences are wondering how it will correlate to the story.

While audiences are excited about the film, many are skeptical, for the terror of the original story of the backrooms is the idea of being alone and trapped for eternity or the psychological effects of being isolated from society. These spaces feel so uncomfortable because they make us feel alienated, totally alone, and detached from society. They feel familiar, like a place we’ve seen before, just void of life and humanity.

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