Are you sitting uncomfortably? How Backrooms upended the horror movie

"Chiwetel Ejiofor has been on a lot of movie sets, but Backrooms was something different: a 30,000 sq ft labyrinth of apparently random corridors and chambers, all carpeted, fluorescent lit and decorated in the same sickly yellow wallpaper. It was so big that people were getting lost in it, says Ejiofor: Especially on those first days. As you try to navigate your way around and you're like: I'm sure it's this door, I'm sure that's the way.' He's laughing at the recollection."

"And you find yourself just back in the wrong corner of the whole studio and you're like: Get me some help!' This is kind of the point of Backrooms the movie and the online phenomenon that spawned it. It's a concept that takes some unpacking, but as the premise for a buzzy A24 horror freakout, you could summarise it as something like The Blair Witch Project meets Severance or The Shining set in an infinite Travelodgeor maybe the exact opposite of a Wes Anderson movie. Comparisons fall short, partly because the Backrooms concept feels as if it's come from another world a parallel dimension, even."

"Ejiofor concurs: There was stuff that we were doing by the end of the film that I was just like: This is among the most bizarre things I have ever been involved in.' Possibly even freakier than the Backrooms concept is the fact that its creator is just 20 years old. The Californian director, Kane Parsons, had never made a feature film before this. Like most gen Zers, he hadn't even been to the cinema that much: It's something that I didn't ever make enough time for in the past, Parsons says, halfapologetically, over a video chat from Los Angeles."

"Growing up with YouTube, it's like there's a lower requirement to go out and consume through a cinema. Whether Parsons is the death of cinema or its future remains to be seen. In person he's neither shy and awkward nor cocky and overconfident; more serious and focused, and very talkative sorry, I'm a rambler, he says at one point. He's no novice, either: Parson"

A 30,000 sq ft studio set was built as a labyrinth of corridors and chambers with carpeted floors, fluorescent lighting, and sickly yellow wallpaper. The space was so confusing that people became lost, especially during early days of filming, repeatedly ending up in the wrong corners and needing help. The film uses the Backrooms premise, an online phenomenon, as the basis for a horror experience. The concept feels like it comes from a parallel dimension, making comparisons to other horror and surreal works fall short. The creator, Kane Parsons, is only about 20 years old and had not previously made a feature film, with a background shaped by YouTube rather than frequent cinema-going.

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