Kane Parsons' 'Backrooms' Brings Liminal Horror to the Big Screen
Kane Parsons' horror film 'Backrooms' has outperformed Steven Spielberg's 'Disclosure Day' at the box office. The 21-year-old YouTuber's feature debut, based on his 2022 web series with 83 million YouTube views, follows Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a bankrupt furniture store owner in the Santa Clara Valley, and his therapist Mary (Renate Reinsve) as they discover a parallel world of endless yellow-lit rooms. The film critiques postmodern consumer culture and trauma commodification, blending 'Institutional Gothic' with 'Liminal Horror' aesthetics. Parsons' architectural design evokes Piranesi and artists like Henrike Naumann and Paul McCarthy. The movie is set in the 1990s pre-Clinton era and features an ominous corporation, Async Research Institute. Parsons, who started the web series at age 16, has been hailed as a wunderkind.
Key facts
- Kane Parsons' 'Backrooms' outperformed Steven Spielberg's 'Disclosure Day' at the box office.
- The film is based on Parsons' 2022 web series that garnered 83 million YouTube views.
- Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Clark, a bankrupt furniture store owner in Santa Clara Valley.
- Renate Reinsve plays Mary, a self-help coach who becomes Clark's therapist.
- The film explores 'Liminal Spaces' and 'Institutional Gothic' horror.
- The Backrooms are described as a 'Rumpelkammer der Postmoderne' (junk room of postmodernism).
- Parsons was 16 when he started the web series in 2022.
- The film's architecture is compared to Piranesi, Henrike Naumann, and Paul McCarthy.
Entities
Artists
- Kane Parsons
- Chiwetel Ejiofor
- Renate Reinsve
- Henrike Naumann
- Paul McCarthy
- Giovanni Battista Piranesi
- Edgar Allan Poe
- H. P. Lovecraft
- Shirley Jackson
- Mark Fisher
- Jacques Derrida
- Jacques Lacan
- Judith Butler
Institutions
- Async Research Institute
- Monopol Magazin
Locations
- Santa Clara Valley
- United States
- Germany