Backrooms (web Series)

''Backrooms,'' sometimes referred to as Kane Pixels' ''Backrooms'' to distinguish it from the urban legend as a whole, is a semi-anthological web series created by American YouTuber and filmmaker Kane Parsons. It is loosely based on the Backrooms urban legend. The series debuted in 2022 with the short film "The Backrooms (Found Footage)" which has over 65 million views as of March 2025. Parsons would expand his series to include twenty more short films. The series is slated for a film adaptation with Parsons set to direct, alongside A24 producing. In January 2023, the series entered a hiatus that lasted until a new installment premiered in September 2024.

The series primarily revolves around Async, a fictional research institute that discovers the Backrooms (in-universe referred to as "the Complex") and attempts to document and research it.

Premise

Set primarily in the 1990s, the series revolves around Async, a fictional research institute that discovers the Backrooms (in-universe referred to as “the Complex”) and attempts to study and document it. Following this discovery, missing persons cases begin to skyrocket. Most installments are centered around various anomalies Async comes across in the Complex.

Development and themes

After making several '' Attack on Titan'' themed videos, Parsons was looking for "new things to do". He was in between projects and was inspired to create a found-footage style animation of the Backrooms after rediscovering a render he had saved some time prior. Parsons was vaguely aware of the Backrooms in terms of the original image and caption he saw on Instagram two years prior. However, he was not aware of the community behind it. In an interview, he stated: "I came across the original image on my computer... and I just thought, huh, it would be interesting to see if I could go to my 3D software, Blender, and try to recreate a scene in this environment,". He used Blender to create a test animation of a chair in the Backrooms being thrown and hitting a wall. The shot would later be used in the first video of the series. Parsons would use Adobe After Effects alongside Blender to create the first video; it took Parsons a month to complete the short.

Parsons would expand the concept into a series shortly after posting the first video. There, he established plot points such as Async—a fictional research facility that discovers the Backrooms in the late 1980s and actively researches in it. Various character animations included in these later installments would require the utilization of motion capture suits.

In an interview with ABC News, Parsons' described the series as "a slow burn story focusing on both the politics of Async and the United States government, as well as the otherworldly, confusing functions of the Complex, or the Backrooms." Parsons credits the Internet aesthetic of liminal spaces as an influence for his series. In an interview with Vice Magazine, Parsons described the Backrooms as a manifestation of poorly remembered noncommittal memories, like old family photos from the 1990s and 2000s: "The flash is always on, the lighting is gross looking, there's yellow walls, the white balance is all off."

Reception

Reception for the series has been mostly positive. The first video of the series received positive reviews from critics. WPST called it "the scariest video on the Internet". ''Otaku USA'' categorized it as analog horror, while ''Dread Central'' and ''Nerdist'' compared it favorably to the 2019 video game '' Control''. ''Kotaku'' praised the series for exercising restraint in its horror and mystery. ''Boing Boing''s Rob Beschizza predicted that the Backrooms, like the creepypasta Slender Man and its panned 2018 film adaptation, would eventually be adapted into a "slick but dismal 2-hour Hollywood movie."

Parsons said he had "no idea" there had been an existing fan community behind the original Backrooms legend, and recalled being surprised to see comments on his first video from people saying "You're doing the Backrooms wrong. What is this?" or "There's supposed to be smilers on level one." He said that this continued until eventually "people almost forgot about the old one" and his version had "sort of been adopted" by fans. For his work on the series, Parsons would receive a Creator Honor award from The Game Theorists during the 12th Streamy Awards. The series' installments have garnered a collective total of over 186 million views.

Episodes

Film adaptation

After publishing ''The Backrooms (Found Footage)'', Parsons was approached by several studios for a feature-length adaptation. He initially pitched the idea as a comic serialization as opposed to a feature-length film. In February 2023, A24, who successfully bid on the film, announced that work had begun on a film adaptation of the Backrooms based on Parsons' videos, with Parsons directing. Roberto Patino is set to write the screenplay, while James Wan, Michael Clear from Atomic Monster, Shawn Levy, Dan Cohen, and Dan Levine from 21 Laps Entertainment, Peter Chernin from Chernin Entertainment are set to produce.

See also

*Internet culture
*Analog horror
*List of creepypastas

Notes

References

External links

* {{YouTube, p=PLVAh-MgDVqvDUEq6qDXqORBioE4Yhol_z, title=''The Backrooms''

2020s YouTube series
2022 web series debuts
American science fiction web series
Fiction set in the 1980s
Fiction set in the 1990s
Science fiction horror web series
Analog horror
Found footage fiction