A low-budget horror film directed by a 20-year-old YouTuber is outperforming the latest Star Wars movie at the box office. Driving its success is an entire viral online labyrinth.
In "Backrooms," Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a failed architect who runs a gloomy discount furniture store, drinking himself to sleep in his shop while feeling depressed over his divorce. One day, he uncovers a portal to a mysterious maze of corridors that seem to stretch on forever.
His therapist, Mary, is portrayed by "Sentimental Value" star Renate Reinsve. She also finds herself trapped in the eerie hallways, all while confronting her own haunting recollections from childhood.
At just 20 years old, director Kane Parsons has become the youngest filmmaker in history to claim the top spot at the US box office with the movie produced by independent studio A24.
In its opening weekend alone, the film—made on a production budget of $10 million—has already earned $81 million domestically and a total of $118 million when including international sales, taking the number one position from "The Mandalorian and Grogu," the newest installment in the Star Wars series.
Even though the movie has not yet been released in many parts of the world during the first weeks of June, it is already breaking numerous records. It marks the strongest North American box office debut ever for an original horror film, as well as the best opening weekend for a first-time filmmaker behind a non-franchise movie.
Adding to its triumph is the fact that the film originated from a viral phenomenon that itself feels like an endless maze.
A single photo inspires an expansive universe
It all began with a photograph of a large, empty office room featuring fluorescent lights and depressing yellow walls that circulated on various message boards over the past decade. Then, in May 2019, it was also posted on a thread of the anonymous imageboard website 4chan.
A reply to the post gave the image the name "Backrooms": "If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the Backrooms, where it's 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," reads the iconic post that sparked an entire online mythology around the space.
The post continued ominously: "God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you."
"Noclipping" is a term used in video games to refer to cheat codes that let players pass through solid surfaces. In internet urban legends, it describes the concept of accidentally "glitching" out of reality and falling into hidden dimensions.
Another useful term for understanding the internet phenomenon is creepypasta, which is the horror story version of the internet slang "copypasta" (from "copy and paste"), through which entire blocks of text go viral by being copied across the internet.
Users then build on these creepypasta to create various paranormal tales, and they become the digital equivalent of urban legends.
Countless fans of the Backrooms creepypasta have since been posting photos related to the myth on Reddit, publishing stories on fanfiction forums, or creating jump-scare games for the gaming platform Steam.
The creator of "Severance," Dan Erickson, has also stated that the Backrooms concept influenced the unsettling, never-ending office space he developed in his popular series.
YouTuber Kane Pixels draws Gen Z to the movie theaters
Kane Parsons was among the fans who made significant contributions to the Backrooms myth.
As a teenager, he was already an experienced YouTuber; he reportedly started posting on the channel at age 9, creating Let's Play videos of "Minecraft." Then, during the COVID lockdowns, he learned to use the open-source 3D computer graphics software Blender to create animated backrooms for his "Backrooms" web series, which went viral.
His clip "The Backrooms (Found Footage)," published four years ago on his YouTube channel Kane Pixels, has accumulated over 80 million views.
The video depicts a 1990s young filmmaker who accidentally no-clips into an extradimensional maze of endless abandoned rooms where hostile entities reside.
His series of 22 "Backrooms" YouTube videos explores, for example, how a fictional corporation's experiments might have inadvertently created the liminal spaces, or shows a pathologist's autopsy of an unidentified victim.
YouTube generation is shifting Hollywood's strategy
Parsons' prominence as Kane Pixels is regarded as a key factor in the record-breaking opening weekend of "Backrooms."
The second surprise box office hit of the month is another horror film, also directed by a YouTuber, the 26-year-old Curry Barker. After three weekends of its release, his horror film "Obsessions" has earned $148 million worldwide against a production budget of less than $1 million.
According to Variety magazine, the success of these YouTubers is signaling "a tectonic shift in Hollywood that's sent shock waves across the industry."
Against the 70% box office drop for "The Mandalorian and Grogu" in its second weekend in theaters, industry observers are noting that Gen Z appears to be growing tired of recycled movie franchises with endless spinoffs, prequels, and sequels.
"The moment is here," one studio head told The Hollywood Reporter. "YouTube is blessing these filmmakers and we are struggling to catch up."
Still, Hollywood will not be abandoning its established strategies so soon, as sequels remain in the mix: Early reports indicate that Kane Parsons will be directing a second part to his record-breaking "Backrooms."
Edited by: Brenda Haas