A24's Backrooms movie has a 'fairly simple' story, its director says but the new horror movie doesn't dumb down 'all of the lore' that diehard fans love
in order to appeal to a wider audience

Date:
Wed, 27 May 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Description:
The director of A24's latest horror film has had his say on some movie and TV adaptations don't deliver on their promises to fans.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter The director of A24's Backrooms movie has had his say on why some film adaptations fail Kane Parsons thinks some studios ignore the "actual DNA" of franchises that made them popular to begin with Backrooms ' filmmaker is also the creator behind a viral YouTube series that was inspired by this film's source material The director of A24's Backrooms movie has had his say on why some film and TV adaptations fail and how his first big-budget project will attempt to avoid similar pitfalls.

Speaking exclusively to TechRadar, Kane Parsons suggested that the reason
some adaptations don't succeed is because studios and/or a production's chief creative team don't fully understand why fans latched onto them in the first place. For the uninitiated: Backrooms is a feature film retelling of The Backrooms. A creepypasta (read: an internet-created horror folktale) that's only existed since 2019, The Backrooms is described as an impossibly large, interdimensional space filled with a seemingly never-ending number of rooms and corridors, and populated by monstrous entities. Latest Videos From You
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Since its conception, The Backrooms has not only become one of the internet's most popular analog horrors but also spawned a wave of indie horror
videogames and served as the inspiration for an American Horror Stories episode. Parsons created a YouTube series inspired by The Backrooms, which went viral in early 2019 (Image credit: A24) Additionally, a viral YouTube series, which began in 2022, has amassed hundreds of millions of views and further helped to shape The Backrooms' extensive lore. The individual behind said YouTube phenomenon? A then-16-year-old Parsons, who was hired to direct A24 's movie adaptation just over a year after his first video metaphorically caught fire.

Given his prominent role in popularizing The Backrooms and fleshing out its mythos through his short films, Parsons appears to be the ideal candidate to helm Backrooms. It's a decision that, despite Parsons' tender age he's still only 20 should also pay off, especially with Backrooms set to attract long-time fans of its source material and Parsons' work to see if its big-screen adaptation is as faithful as Backrooms ' trailer makes it out to
be .

Other studios might want to take that expert-first leaf out of the A24 playbook, too, especially from the perspective of live-action reimaginings of other forms of media. Indeed, from Netflix's Cowboy Bebop TV show and Paramount's The Last Airbender film, to the Resident Evil movies and more besides, Parsons believes that studio interference and/or hiring the wrong people to oversee such adaptations are the root cause of their downfall. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. Chiwetel Ejiofor is
one of the few famous faces you'll see in Backrooms' movie adaptation (Image credit: A24) "I think what happens is there's an overvaluation of the
costumes worn by an IP [intellectual property]," Parsons told me when I asked how Backrooms threads the needle of appealing to diehard fans of The
Backrooms and general moviegoers alike.

"And that's where most screen adaptations go wrong," he continued. "It's almost as though the skin, specific characters, and other elements of an IP are taken without any of the actual DNA that motivated those creative decisions in the first place. So, I feel like what you need to do and we did this on our film is rewind all the way to the beginning, and remind
ourselves why people latched onto that initial post [of The Backrooms] and my first short film.

"Fundamentally, for all of the lore and depth, The Backrooms is a story playing in the periphery of a fairly simple concept. Whether people have seen it online or not, I think they can understand it's pretty supernatural in its makeup, so it'll be quite digestible for them.

"And I'd also say the goal isn't to feed into that simplicity in a negative way," Parsons added of one of this year's most exciting new movies . "It's figuring out what was so effective about that very first, almost sensory experience that fans had, and following that thread to build this movie from the ground up."

Backrooms launches in theaters worldwide on Friday, May 29. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.



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