A movie poster featuring plain yellow wallpaper is usually not going to spark any interest.
But not this one. It's instantly recognizable to millions and terrifying.
It's Hollywood's newest horror film, Behind the Scenes, and it knows its audience: one that's more drawn to whispered horror than celebrity names, monsters, and gore.
Backstage spaces are essentially unsettling, abandoned rooms with seemingly no end in sight. They can be empty offices, corridors, or passageways—unsettling transitional zones.
The idea originated in 2019, when anonymous users of the 4chan forum were asked to "post disturbing images that they find 'strange'.".
A24's teaser poster for the film adaptation draws on the familiarity of the monochrome yellow wallpaper in Backstage [A24]
One user posted a photo of an abandoned office space with mustard-yellow wallpaper and fluorescent lighting.
The message read: "If you're not careful and go beyond reality [the game's term for glitching or disappearing] in the wrong places, you'll find yourself in Backstage, where all that awaits you is the stench of old wet carpet, a madness of monochromatic yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum volume, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly divided empty rooms in which to find yourself trapped.".
The message continued: "God save you if you hear something wandering around, because it definitely heard you.".
The original Backrooms image was uploaded to 4chan in 2019. It has since been revealed that it was taken from a real furniture store in the US state of Wisconsin [4chan].
The idea then grew into an incredibly popular YouTube miniseries created by 16-year-old Kane Parsons. Parsons used the computer graphics program Blender to create environments that exceeded his budget. Today, the series has over 200 million views.
The idea was so compelling that Hollywood studio A24, the makers of the Oscar-nominated horror film "Substance," tapped 20-year-old Parsons to direct the adaptation, which opened Friday [May 29].
Parsons, now the youngest director in A24 history, offers one serious piece of advice for surviving Behind the Scenes: "First of all, embrace it, because I don't like to give you false optimism.".
His mission in 2023 was clear: bring this isolating hellscape, resisting isolation and resisting everything, to the big screen, and do it in a way that resembled his YouTube series.
He says what attracted him most to the project was the use of a Hollywood budget, which allowed him to delve deeper into the subject matter and bring in a "real physicality" to make the film "different from a YouTube series.".
20-year-old director Kane Parsons gained Hollywood attention after his YouTube short film Backrooms, inspired by a forum post, went viral [Getty Images].
He says the film's crew achieved this by building massive 30,000-square-foot sets based on his Blender designs. It's reminiscent of Parsons's first YouTube video, "Found Footage," which has garnered 80 million views and featured shaky footage shot on a '90s camcorder of an eerie yellow office building.
«"I think it allows us to get more into the characters," Parsons says.
A24's adaptation, written by Will Sudick, uses the "Behind the Scenes" concept to explore mental health issues.
Oscar-nominated Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Clark, a disillusioned furniture salesman going through a divorce.
As tensions mount between him and his therapist Mary, played by Renate Reinswe, Clark discovers a way out of the store and into Backstage, a space that begins to exploit the unresolved traumas of both of them.
The appeal of "Behind the Scenes" to viewers reflects the rise of a very specific fear online: the idea of liminal—or transitional—space.
Parsons, seen here on set with Ejiofor, says his relative youth has never been a problem [A24]
Meredith Banasiak, a neuroscience and architecture expert who studies the connection between buildings and human well-being, says hallways and doorways often trigger this fear.
This creates the so-called doorway effect, which confuses our brain. "When spaces begin to merge, our perception of information begins to change as well," she explains.
In "Backstage" this is taken to the extreme - a physical symbol of memories "dissolving into themselves.".
As Clarke tells Mary in the film, "The more [the backstage] remembers something, the less often it does it.".
Banasiak says her research, along with other scientific studies, shows that people who have experienced trauma often struggle in similar situations.
Renate Reinswe plays Mary, a therapist. The actress says she immersed herself in the virtual world of "Behind the Scenes" even before filming began [A24]
Backrooms has a Reddit forum with over 350,000 subscribers. The forum's moderators say there's something "deeply existential" about the concept, and that it's less about monsters and "more about the uncertainty of what else might already exist in this space with you.".
TikTok is full of Backrooms-themed videos, which have collectively garnered over 30 billion views, highlighting the popularity of this '90s-inspired theme among Generation Z.
There are also connections to gaming: the free-to-play survival game Backrooms is available on Steam, and similar projects are offered on Roblox.
Internet researcher Gunseli Yalçınkaya argues that a wistful nostalgia for pre-internet memories and spaces, as well as isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, may explain why young people are drawn to ideas like Backrooms.
Yalçınkaya says the film reflects the dissatisfaction of what it means to be a young person today, «where reality is constantly mediated through screens – there’s already a feeling that reality is glitching, that nothing feels real anymore.».
Parsons' original YouTube short film, "Behind the Scenes," appeared to be shot in real locations, but was actually computer-generated imagery created using Blender [YouTube/@KanePixels].
As business publication Fast Company noted, Backrooms is among several recent "edge space" games "shaped by the most traumatic formative years of Gen Z.".
Among them is the horror film Iron Lungs, directed by YouTuber Markiplier and based on a video game and set on a submarine. Released independently, it grossed over $50 million (£43 million) worldwide.
The online trailer for "Behind the Scenes" quickly became one of A24's most-viewed videos, garnering 31 million views. The question, of course, is whether this online buzz will translate into ticket sales in stores.
For Matthew Frank, author of The Ankler's Crowd Pleaser newsletter, the move from YouTube to the big screen "feels like a sea change.".
Hollywood executives are looking to audiences and inspiration from a culture that was born online, as well as the work of filmmakers like Parsons.
Frank says Backrooms executive producer Chris White discovered Parsons' work after his teenage son insisted he see it. Another director who emerged online, 26-year-old Curry Barker, also released his horror film Obsession in theaters this month after a similar breakthrough.
Studios are also helped by the fact that these names have a "pre-established audience" at a time when theaters are struggling to compete with streaming services.
According to Frank, early projections for Behind the Scenes look "really promising." It's expected to easily surpass its $10 million (£8 million) budget and "be seen as an event that few films achieve.".
«"Backrooms appeals to audiences as a piece of internet intellectual property, created specifically for the internet," Frank adds.
As for Parsons, much attention has been paid in the media to how young he is to be directing a Hollywood film—a topic that tires him.
He was concerned that his relative inexperience might affect perception, but he says it was "never discussed" on set.
«Almost immediately we were alone, in a vacuum, discussing the project… I like to think I made up for my lack of experience with my complete obsession.».
Parsons, and perhaps Hollywood itself, found much to explore in "Behind the Scenes." Will they be able to break out? Absolutely not.
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