"Backrooms": A Cleverly Made Film Quickly Consumed and Forgotten

A new horror film, "Backrooms," has unexpectedly surged to the top of the U.S. box office, driven by the vision of its 21-year-old creator, Kane Parsons. The movie, released just before Parsons' 21st birthday on June 18, leverages a well-established horror technique: creating fear through suggestion and the unseen, rather than explicit visuals.

This minimalist approach, often employed to overcome budget limitations, echoes the success of low-budget phenomena like "The Blair Witch Project" (1999) and "Paranormal Activity" (2007). These films demonstrated that a compelling narrative and atmospheric tension could yield massive returns on minimal investment. "Backrooms" appears to follow this lucrative model, captivating audiences with its sparse yet unsettling aesthetic.

Parsons, who operates under the online alias Kane Pixels, first gained significant traction by publishing videos on social media platforms. His distinctive style involves creating unsettling environments, often depicted as abandoned yellow spaces resembling endless office or living areas, presented in a found-footage format. This online success caught the attention of the production company A24, known for its distinctive filmography, which then commissioned the feature-length adaptation.

While Parsons' short films often leaned towards experimental and found-footage aesthetics, the transition to a feature film required a more developed narrative. Writer Will Soodik was brought on board to craft a story that could sustain the longer format, moving beyond the ambiguous, "miraculously found video" premise of his earlier works.