[0:00] Why does the backrooms look like this?
[0:01] I've noticed every review talks about
[0:03] the same thing. It's a mood or it's the
[0:05] aesthetic. Maybe it's just the vibe.
[0:06] It's transcendent, atmospherically
[0:08] haunting, but so were all these other
[0:09] movies like The Shining, Exit 8, Escape
[0:11] Room, 1408, Asbow, So Below, and even
[0:14] Cam. The thing is, every creative and
[0:15] technical choice in the back rooms
[0:17] actually builds that feeling that made
[0:18] us call it a vibe or atmospherically
[0:20] haunting. It kept us talking about the
[0:21] movie long after we've seen it. And with
[0:23] a film like Backrooms, a project that
[0:24] began as a single image slowly growing
[0:26] into its own lore over decades, the goal
[0:28] for the movie wasn't really to define
[0:30] what this world is, but to expand on it
[0:31] without closing it off. In the director
[0:33] Kane Parson's own words, the horror of
[0:35] the back rooms isn't in the space being
[0:36] explained, it's in how much of it gets
[0:38] filled in by us. If the horror comes
[0:40] from what we project onto this space,
[0:41] then every visual decision has to
[0:43] support that feeling. That's where the
[0:45] architecture, the lighting, the
[0:46] cinematography, and sound design come
[0:47] in, which we'll get into in this video.
[0:49] There's a lot of different movies to
[0:50] check out in regards to liinal horror or
[0:52] liinal spaces. And the concept of it is
[0:54] nothing new, of course, but I find that
[0:55] most of these movies always have to
[0:57] bring a lot of existential dread and
[0:58] never fully balance between reality and
[1:00] fiction, which wasn't hard for a
[1:02] franchise like this one that found a lot
[1:03] of footing during the pandemic when in a
[1:05] way we were also trapped in our own
[1:06] spaces. So, the vibes familiar, but our
[1:08] relationship to it is already personal.
[1:10] As humans, liinal spaces naturally
[1:12] trigger anxiety. Part of that is learned
[1:13] through horror movies, but it also comes
[1:15] from our everyday lives. We read empty
[1:16] parking garages or abandoned offices as
[1:18] potentially dangerous because spaces
[1:20] without people, without rules, can be
[1:22] places that are ultimately very
[1:23] dangerous. So, we don't need a monster
[1:25] necessarily to make this movie feel
[1:26] wrong. It helps, but it really starts
[1:28] with the environments that already sit
[1:29] really close to memory. It taps into our
[1:31] fascination with the unknown while
[1:33] appealing to a younger audience. Unlike
[1:34] other creepy pasta movies like Slender
[1:36] Man, The Backgrounds draws from a very
[1:38] Gen Z anxiety. The battle against AI,
[1:40] where things that look almost right are
[1:41] completely off. And in a world
[1:43] experienced through our phones, we're
[1:44] surrounded by endless choices. is
[1:45] curated by algorithms we don't fully
[1:47] control, kind of like the back rooms. At
[1:49] the same time, it taps into a nostalgia
[1:51] for that Y2K vibe of design and
[1:53] aesthetic that younger people have
[1:54] become very fascinated by in the recent
[1:56] years, while preserving a bit of genuine
[1:58] memories for us older millennials. The
[2:00] result is a world that feels both new
[2:01] and remembered, a perfect basis for that
[2:03] kind of uncanny horror that The Back
[2:04] Rooms really thrives on. The team behind
[2:06] The Back Rooms was a full army. However,
[2:08] I do want to highlight director and
[2:10] co-composer Kane Parsons, who worked
[2:11] with the cinematographer Jeremy Cox. Cox
[2:13] previously shot Keeper and Mile and
[2:15] Kicks and also worked as second unit DP
[2:17] on Long Legs and the Monkey. He's also
[2:19] worked on the 2024 psychological horror
[2:21] series The Edge of Sleep, where
[2:22] Markiplier starred as the lead. And
[2:24] given Markiplier's jump into feature
[2:25] film making with Iron Lung, this isn't
[2:27] Jeremy's first time working with
[2:28] YouTubers, moving into fullscale
[2:30] cinematic productions. Cox has also been
[2:32] working with a Vancouver based
[2:33] production company called Oddfellows,
[2:35] the same company behind Back Rooms,
[2:36] Longlegs, The Monkey, and Keeper. Chris
[2:38] Ferguson, who has been running
[2:39] Oddfellows for over a decade, originally
[2:41] introduced him to Kane after working on
[2:42] Keeper and seeing how well they did on a
[2:44] small budget. So, they saw it as a nice
[2:46] fit. And that's when Kane showed him his
[2:47] YouTube series. And unlike most projects
[2:49] where world building is something
[2:50] developed in like pre-production, this
[2:52] world already existed. So, it wasn't
[2:53] being constructed. So, that took a lot
[2:55] of work off their plates. A lot of their
[2:57] visual inspiration came from things like
[2:59] 1 hour photo. And you can see in 1 Hour
[3:00] Photo and the blocking and how they use
[3:02] the space how that really inspired back
[3:04] rooms. but they also pulled from bigger
[3:05] references in general because this is
[3:07] already an established world, just not a
[3:09] traditional, you know, cinematic one.
[3:10] So, they spent a lot of time studying
[3:12] Reddit threads of liinal space
[3:13] photography, looking at what
[3:14] specifically made those images feel off,
[3:16] and how to recreate that sensation in
[3:17] live action. It also is important to
[3:19] remember that this is Kane's very first
[3:21] liveaction feature, and Cox has
[3:22] mentioned that Kane approached it very
[3:24] directly and happily, even while
[3:25] acknowledging that translating something
[3:27] so fully done in Blender into physical
[3:29] production came with a steep learning
[3:31] curve. Kane has always been drawn to
[3:32] film, but the shift from total digital
[3:34] control to real world constraints meant
[3:36] negotiating scale. In contrast, and to a
[3:39] traditional cinematic sense, no one on
[3:40] that team wanted the back rooms to feel
[3:42] glossy or pristine. The goal wasn't to
[3:44] create something overly cinematic, but
[3:46] to build a film that kind of resists
[3:47] those expectations while also still
[3:49] functioning as like a coherent film
[3:51] piece. So, a lot of the process became
[3:53] about figuring out a simple question.
[3:54] How do you make something that refuses
[3:56] rules still feel like a film? And how do
[3:58] you take something familiar and make it
[3:59] feel unfamiliar? And that answer
[4:01] actually starts with the architecture.
[4:03] Production designer Danny Verette and
[4:04] director Kane Parsons built more than
[4:06] 30,000 square feet of backroom sets
[4:08] across four sound stages. Even their
[4:10] crew needed signs to navigate this maze.
[4:12] Parsons had already spent years building
[4:14] these spaces digitally in Blender and
[4:15] created even more for Verette before
[4:17] building a single set. That was because
[4:19] this movie wasn't meant to give you a
[4:20] new version of the back rooms, but to
[4:22] build off his original work published
[4:23] all those years ago. So, this honors the
[4:25] fan base and expands upon it for the
[4:26] movie. But recreating the back rooms
[4:28] isn't enough. The movie still has to
[4:30] trap us in that same way that Kane's
[4:32] videos did, but for 2 hours. And it
[4:34] needs that same locked in pressure. So,
[4:35] the spaces aren't just here to look like
[4:37] the back rooms. They start supporting
[4:38] the story itself. It isn't just a maze
[4:40] where Clark wanders through. The film
[4:42] suggests that the space is constantly
[4:43] absorbing fragments of the people who
[4:45] pass through it. Their memories, their
[4:46] anxieties, their architecture. Thus, it
[4:48] becomes a world that feels familiar
[4:49] without ever being identifiable. Every
[4:51] corner, every hallway feels like it
[4:53] belongs somewhere but nowhere at the
[4:55] same time. Kane has talked about how
[4:56] liinal spaces remind us of fragments we
[4:58] barely remember. The texture of a
[4:59] wallpaper in a relative's house, the
[5:01] shape of an archway, a waiting room, a
[5:03] strip mall, a carpet pattern you've
[5:04] forgotten but somehow still recognize.
[5:06] Tiny details that aren't important
[5:07] enough to remember consciously but never
[5:09] fully disappear. And the original
[5:10] backroom's image kind of works for the
[5:12] same reason. It's not a haunted house.
[5:14] It's an ordinary space photographed
[5:15] poorly. The white balance is off. The
[5:17] colors are distorted. Nothing about it
[5:18] is intentionally designed to be scary.
[5:20] However, it's still very unsettling.
[5:22] Vertt has said that they're creating a
[5:23] world where rules don't apply. And so he
[5:25] was very careful to make sure that they
[5:27] weren't just doing things because they
[5:28] could. And the goal always was to
[5:30] establish recognition first, then it
[5:31] unravels and you start to realize then
[5:33] everything's off. And that's where The
[5:35] Back Rooms differs from something like
[5:36] The Shining. The Overlook Hotel was
[5:38] built to feel disorienting. It creates
[5:40] anxiety in a controlling and impossible
[5:41] way. While back rooms creates anxiety
[5:43] through recognition, it isn't asking you
[5:45] to enter a strange place. It's asking
[5:46] you to wonder if you've already been
[5:47] there before. So the architecture feels
[5:49] less like a location and more like a
[5:51] collection of memories. is just stitched
[5:52] together. And once the film convinces
[5:54] you that the space belongs somewhere in
[5:55] your past, it becomes much more easier
[5:57] to get lost in it. And while the
[5:58] architecture creates that anxiety, the
[6:00] camera really traps us inside of it.
[6:02] It's June. There's a lot going on from
[6:04] graduations to Father's Day and big
[6:05] summer plans. It's easy to look around
[6:07] and feel personally diminished because
[6:09] it looks like everybody else is having
[6:10] the time of their lives. And that's not
[6:11] a great feeling to sit alone with. But
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[7:05] here with you. The camera work continues
[7:07] to behave like the architecture where it
[7:09] becomes part of the story, supporting
[7:10] the story visually and just trapping us
[7:12] at the same time. And Jeremy has spoken
[7:13] about how the back rooms forced him to
[7:15] rethink his own instincts as a DP. The
[7:17] back rooms allowed him to have framing
[7:19] deliberately offc center, slightly
[7:20] short-sighted and asymmetrical. Because
[7:22] there's so much uniformity to every
[7:24] location in the movie, you instinctively
[7:26] want to deviate from that. So, there's a
[7:27] visual imbalance as well. There's a lot
[7:29] of wide angles that make the characters
[7:31] feel and look smaller while
[7:32] simultaneously allowing their
[7:34] environment to like dominate the frame.
[7:36] So, it's a weird visual where the space
[7:38] is massive and still somehow feels
[7:40] claustrophobic at the same time. Even
[7:41] when characters are standing directly in
[7:43] front of us, the environment feels like
[7:44] the real subject of the shot, which
[7:46] feels important to the heart of the back
[7:47] rooms where exploring the space has
[7:49] always been encouraged, but you would
[7:50] never actually find answers to them. The
[7:52] camera will at times move like it's also
[7:54] another character in the movie, peeking
[7:55] around corners before our characters get
[7:56] there. It lingers on empty rooms, and we
[7:58] get to see and study the place before
[8:00] they even enter it. Cox shot the film on
[8:02] a Sony Venice using a Rialto extension
[8:04] system, which separates the sensor from
[8:05] the camera body and allows it to fit
[8:07] into incredibly tight spaces. That meant
[8:09] that the camera could move through
[8:10] impossible corners and awkward angles
[8:12] inside that maze, making you feel rooted
[8:14] in that environment. And that makes
[8:15] sense because the camera often feels
[8:17] subjective, as if we're kind of
[8:18] remembering a place rather than
[8:19] physically exploring it. And despite
[8:21] being a studio film, the movie never
[8:23] completely abandons the found footage
[8:25] that made Kane's original video so
[8:26] great. They remain wide, the camera
[8:28] remains curious, and our attention is
[8:30] constantly pulled towards the
[8:31] environment rather than the people
[8:32] inside of it. The found footage is
[8:33] arguably the best part of the YouTube
[8:35] series, and Kane keyframed all the
[8:37] movements for handheld in Blender. And
[8:38] according to Jeremy, some of the hardest
[8:40] stuff to operate was the handheld work
[8:42] because you had to act as if it was an
[8:44] accident, but also hit the key beats.
[8:45] They were shot in Red Komodo, and
[8:47] there's additionally VFX in these
[8:48] segments. And after all the VFX was
[8:50] done, they printed it onto VHS. So
[8:52] everything feels just as aesthetically
[8:53] viby as the original image in the
[8:55] YouTube series delivered. Yet,
[8:56] architecture and cinematography aren't
[8:58] alone in making the back rooms feel oh
[9:00] so wrong. You might have noticed a
[9:01] stinky putrid tone and smooth varnish
[9:03] that would put smooth Spongebob to
[9:04] shame. Across every version, from that
[9:07] single image to the YouTube series with
[9:08] Blender to the big screen, color and
[9:10] lighting have been really important in
[9:11] shaping its atmosphere across all forms
[9:13] of media. But what makes it really
[9:14] unsettling is just how profoundly flat
[9:16] it is to me. There's no contrast, no
[9:18] shadows in the traditional sense, of
[9:20] course, and it's not that cinematic
[9:21] lighting that you might be used to, but
[9:22] it's also very common in A24 movies. It
[9:25] feels designed to look not designed and
[9:27] the color grading pushes that even more
[9:29] and is perfectly just imperfect in the
[9:31] same sense. Where it's normal for movies
[9:33] to use color theory to reflect different
[9:35] atmospheric changes or maybe a character
[9:36] state of mind, backroom uses its colors
[9:38] to be more disorienting and just very
[9:40] uncomfortable. Outside in the real world
[9:42] in the movie, there's this cold or like
[9:43] blue tone over everything, which isn't,
[9:45] you know, unheard of. It's showing a bit
[9:46] of detachment from the world that we're
[9:48] about to enter. Inside this new world is
[9:49] sickly yellow and fluorescent and the
[9:51] opposite of inviting. The warm tones
[9:53] throughout the movie from the occasional
[9:54] lamps should feel comforting. Instead,
[9:56] they appear during moments of confusion
[9:58] and feel more rancid than warm. They
[10:00] went as far as to test different shades
[10:02] of yellow and photos of different skin
[10:03] tones to find the right balance. So,
[10:05] we're seeing how color wasn't even only
[10:07] an aesthetic bonus, but where they began
[10:08] fine-tuning that distortion vibe. And as
[10:11] most fans know, watching the original
[10:12] work, Kane really succeeded in building
[10:14] a great sound design around his videos.
[10:16] On top of creating music for the
[10:18] original short films, Kane had also been
[10:19] expanding the soundsscapes for back
[10:21] rooms into a standalone albums that
[10:23] weren't shared in the series, but still
[10:24] allowed fans to pull more information
[10:26] from. The score helps you identify the
[10:28] area and works like a compass in a way.
[10:30] It doesn't only support emotionally like
[10:31] most scores do. It helps guide you. It
[10:33] reorients you in a way where the music
[10:35] isn't just here on top of the picture,
[10:37] it's helping you see it. Kane
[10:38] co-composed with Ido Venman, who also
[10:40] composed the score for Keeper, which he
[10:42] worked on with Back Room's DP, Jeremy
[10:43] Cox. Arguably, this movie sounds more
[10:46] like just regular sound design than a
[10:48] score. It's at all times responding to
[10:50] what's happening or how people are
[10:52] reacting. It was less about creating a
[10:54] thematic score and just maintaining a
[10:56] consistent like sonic environment that's
[10:58] very fluid and behaves in its own way.
[11:00] And that blur between sound design and
[11:02] score is really interesting in this
[11:03] movie because it's full of like
[11:05] atmospheric audio cues and it feels so
[11:07] constant. You don't know whether it's
[11:08] playing to us or just living in the
[11:10] movie. And there's no clear separation
[11:12] of what is real and what is not.
[11:13] Essentially, we stop tracking what is
[11:15] music versus what is the environment
[11:17] because both are operating under the
[11:19] same kind of logic. So, when you look at
[11:20] all of this together, the architecture,
[11:22] the cinematography, the lighting, the
[11:23] sound, it starts feeling like a system.
[11:25] It takes so many moving pieces to
[11:27] control and support any film. But
[11:28] technically, there's so many reasons for
[11:30] the back rooms being different from
[11:31] traditional movies of its like caliber.
[11:33] Nothing in the back rooms is designed to
[11:34] fully disorient you immediately. It
[11:36] starts with familiarity. Spaces that
[11:38] feel almost real, frames that feel
[11:39] almost balanced, lighting that feels
[11:41] almost natural, and then piece by piece,
[11:42] that familiarity slips. And that's what
[11:44] makes it work. Because the film isn't
[11:46] asking us to understand the back rooms.
[11:47] It's asking us to move through it the
[11:49] same way the characters do. Constantly
[11:50] searching for something that confirms
[11:52] where we are without actually ever
[11:53] getting there. So, when you ask, why
[11:55] does the Back Rooms movie look like
[11:56] this? The short answer is it's designed
[11:58] to be disorienting, but in a way that's
[11:59] built on familiarity. and that comes
[12:01] from a series of very specific technical
[12:03] and sometimes psychological choices that
[12:04] create unease and discomfort and
[12:06] ambiguity. Together, they preserve the
[12:08] original feeling of discovering the back
[12:09] rooms online for the first time while
[12:11] also expanding it into a world you can
[12:13] actually explore and get lost in.
[12:14] Comment down below with your thoughts on
[12:15] the movie and how you felt about the
[12:16] vibe because I know it's very alluring
[12:18] and I know it's very cool. And a special
[12:20] thanks to one of our YouTube members,
[12:21] Paulo Bianca, who supports us at the
[12:23] executive producer level. A big thanks
[12:25] to Studio Tech Brian Kim behind the
[12:26] cameras. New Rockstars editors Joshua
[12:28] Steven Herd and Abby Fel and all the
[12:30] other supporting editors for their work
[12:31] on this video and all of our videos.
[12:32] Follow me at Lulu Clement. Subscribe to
[12:34] all the channels in the New Rockstars
[12:35] Network for breakdowns and news coverage
[12:36] of everything you love. Thanks for
[12:37] watching. I'll see you guys later.