Backrooms, the A24 horror film adaptation based on the viral short film by Kane Parsons, has received its final trailer ahead of its release on 29 May 2026, offering an expanded look at its world and characters, including a first look at a fan-favourite location.
The film follows Chiwetel Ejiofor’s (Doctor Strange) Clark, a furniture store owner who discovers a gateway in the basement, leading him to an eerie liminal space, a concept where a location feels normal but just a little bit off, leading to feelings of unease that can’t really be explained. The film will introduce multiple people entering the Backrooms together, something that changes the dynamic of Parsons’ original short film, with additional cast including Renate Reinsve (A Different Man) as Clark’s therapist Dr Mary Kline, who enters the Backrooms to search for him, Mark Duplass (Creep), Finn Bennett (A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms), Lukita Maxwell (Shrinking), and Avan Jogia (Zombieland: Double Tap).
The trailer also offers a first look at the Poolrooms, which was a fan-created extension of the Backrooms featuring flooded spaces lined with tiles, presenting a stark contrast in colour tone compared to the minimalistic, familiar yellow rooms, while still providing that same uneasiness.
While the film is based on Parsons’ YouTube horror series, with the 20-year-old also helming the movie from a script by Will Soodik, the original concept for the Backrooms came from a creepypasta that originated on the forum 4chan in 2019 and was used to describe a photo of an empty HobbyTown. This photo racked up more than 190 million views to date, and popularised the concept of liminal spaces.
Over the years, the Backrooms concept has also expanded as one of the internet’s most famous modern urban legends, based on the mythology that they are the space that people arrive at when they accidentally no-clip from reality. This unique concept also inspired numerous video games centred on a mysterious company researching the Backrooms, and now, its own feature film.
Backrooms will bring the horrors of liminal space to life when it hits cinemas on 29 May 2026.
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
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