Backrooms is the feature film debut of Kane Parsons — known online as Kane Pixels — adapted from his own viral YouTube horror series, which was itself born out of the original 4chan creepypasta about liminal yellow corridors and the wrong sides of reality. At 20 years old, Parsons becomes the youngest director in A24's history. That fact alone makes this film worth paying attention to. The fact that it actually delivers is what makes it worth recommending.

This is a film that operates on a physical level. I want to be clear about that. The suspense and anxiety this film builds is so sustained, so carefully crafted, that it caused actual physical discomfort. My shoulders were locked. My jaw was tense. I left the cinema with a stiff neck. That is not exaggeration — that is what good atmospheric horror is supposed to do, and Backrooms achieves it with remarkable consistency.

Real credit needs to go to three departments in particular. The sound design is exceptional — the buzzing fluorescent hum, the distant echoes, the wrong-ness of every audio cue is doing serious heavy lifting throughout. The lighting team has captured the specific quality of liminal space dread that fans of the source material will recognise immediately — sickly yellow, oppressive, somehow both bright and suffocating. And the makeup work is going to give me night terrors for the foreseeable future. Together, the three of them deliver something genuinely unsettling.

I'll be honest about the narrative. There are layers and concepts in this film that I do not think I fully grasped on a single viewing, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. The deeper meanings, the connections, the symbolism — much of it will reward repeat viewing and active discussion. And that is, in many ways, where the film does its most interesting work. The conversations afterwards — the "what did we just watch," the theorising, the questioning — are some of the best post-film discussions I've had in years. For me, that is the highest compliment I can give a film.

Where I'm genuinely torn is on viewing strategy. Part of me thinks you should research the Backrooms lore beforehand to get the most out of the experience. The other part of me thinks the rawness of going in blind and letting the insanity wash over you is the more rewarding path. There's no clean answer.

Backrooms is the kind of horror film that respects its audience enough to leave room for interpretation, while still delivering on the physical, atmospheric, sensory experience that makes the genre worth showing up for. Kane Parsons is a name to watch.

8 out of 10. Strong recommend — see it on the big screen.