It’s been almost seven years since the internet was first introduced to the concept of the Backrooms, and in that time the crowd-sourced online horror sensation has taken the world by storm. An entire subcommunity has sprouted up around the concept, giving the world an array of short stories and creepypastas, video game adaptations, and YouTube short films (along with inspiring, bizarrely enough, the TV show Severance). Now, inevitably, the idea has transcended the web and been adopted by Hollywood; specifically, everyone’s favorite darling indie studiohouse A24 (continuing their tireless emphasis on niche horror like last year’s Bring Her Back) will be releasing a feature film based on the concept and directed by 20 year old Kane Parsons, aka Kane Pixels, the creator of the immensely popular Backrooms series of shorts on YouTube.
Today, A24 released the first trailer for the film, and it’s about as esoteric and cryptic as everyone was expecting. With excited and apprehensive voiceover in the background talking about finding a place that just “goes on and on and on,” the trailer consists of a single shot descending down a series of floors, each one more uncanny and surreal than the last, until finally landing in the titular labyrinth of rooms. Fans of the ever-growing fictional universe will undoubtedly be intrigued by the brief glimpse, but for everyone else, the trailer is sure to inspire one pressing question: what ARE the Backrooms?
