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Spanning 25 short films, Kane Parsons' popular YouTube series Backrooms has amassed a whopping 197 million views since the first video dropped in 2022. When filming the live-action adaptation, though, star Chiwetel Ejiofor felt no pressure to live up to fans' expectations.
"I didn't have any thoughts, really, about the viral nature of it," the Marvel actor tells GamesRadar+, ahead of the horror film's release. "I just thought that it was a fascinating world to explore, [with] fascinating characters.
"As you were saying before, [it] had this deep psychological resonance. [It's] almost that thing that you feel that's on the tip of your tongue, you know? It's an emotion that you haven't quite articulated. [Director] Kane [Parsons] is sort of reaching around in this area that's a combination of memory, emotion, past, successes, failures, and all of the things that you carry with you. I just thought it was remarkable. It was sitting in that that I was really about when we were doing it, and Kane felt like he was completely in control of that."
Helmed by the now-20-year-old, Parsons' big-screen Backrooms follows Ejiofor's "complicated" Clark, who's been living in his furniture store in Santa Clara Valley since his wife kicked him out of their house. When the power in the shop starts flickering one night, Clark ventures down to the sub-level to check the circuit breaker and stumbles across a creepy, corner-filled dimension that seemingly goes on and on and on.
Much of Parsons' original series centered on random people accidentally "no-clipping" into said realm, as a mysterious organization called Async investigates its origins and purpose. There's a little of that in the movie, but for the most part, it explores Clark's psychological response to the titular space AKA The Complex – and how he involves his therapist, Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve), who's navigating her own traumatic past, in his manic search for answers.
"He was really taking care of all the details. I remember hearing him talk about the wires and the specificness of the lighting, the specific color of the wallpaper," Reinsve says of Parsons. "Everything was so thoroughly worked through. So it actually felt very led by [Kane], and [we] could relax and just focus on the emotional journey."
Backrooms releases on May 29. In the meantime, check out our guide to the most exciting upcoming horror movies heading our way.
