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"You are not supposed to be here."
As a tagline for upcoming A24 horror Backrooms, it's simple and effective. What it also might do, for a certain generation of gamers and YouTube viewers, is send a chill racing down their spine.
Article continues belowAt its heart is the idea that, yes, we're not supposed to be here and – thanks to Kane Pixels dropping these glimpses at random intervals shorn of context – it doesn't feel like it should be on YouTube either.
Out of bounds
It all feeds into the idea of creepypasta. First popularized by Slender Man, the banner of intricate horror stories are best described as deeply unsettling folk tales and manufactured urban legends brought to life on everything from 2000s internet forums to proto-ARG-style video adventures. The Backrooms is but one example, but others include sonic.exe, a horrific take on the Blue Blur, and BEN Drowned, an unsettling tale about a Majora's Mask cartridge haunted by the spirit of a dead child.
It's that connection to the likes of Sonic and Link, for me personally, that unlocks a core – albeit embarrassing – memory of playing video games as a child and outright breaking them. No, not smashing up a disc with a hammer; instead, that fear derives from heading out of bounds with glitches, bashing up against invisible walls, and going beyond the game's apparent limitations.
Think making your way onto Grand Theft Auto: Vice City's second island early, GoldenEye's no-clip paths, or even something like Pokemon's legendary glitched MissingNo as just a handful of exploits that live long in the memory.
Admittedly, anti-cheats and modern gaming generations have put more walls up to ward off any curious gamers. The Stanley Parable, a meta adventure game that gleefully breaks down the fourth wall then tells you all about it, feels like the polished Mario to Backrooms' Wario and is the best modern example – but they are few and far between.
Before, there lay a terrifying thrill in tiptoeing along edges, all while risking a game crashing or, worse, falling into an endless abyss and losing hours of playtime.
There was something scary about that. Don't laugh. Maybe it was a first taste of casual rebelliousness (or, more realistically, the fear of breaking something that my parents shelled out £40 for), but there was an anxious thrill to doing everything but the thing I was supposed to do.
From what little we've seen of The Backrooms, it appears to tap into that same register. Even the most unconventional horror films have their own tropes. Parsons' effort, with its focus on walls, abandoned hallways, and black voids, appears to be opting for a different path entirely, one unseen and one very few would tread.
“A strange doorway appears in the basement of a furniture showroom," is all we know about the film other than its cast, which includes Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, and Mark Duplass, and cryptic trailer. I'd argue that the marketing's unknowable quality, mirroring creepypastas being dropped in the middle of the night on messageboards without warning, will be its biggest strength as we inch towards its May release.
Better yet, it's probably one of the few horror films that can trace its DNA back to cursed N64 cartridges and the shared feeling from '90s gamers of going a little bit further than you were supposed to. That makes me feel very excited. And a little bit nervous. Maybe I should watch it on a CRT TV for the full experience?
Backrooms hits cinemas on May 29, 2026. For more, check out the upcoming horror movies coming your way very soon.
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