WISCONSIN — The film 'Backrooms,' directed and co-written by 20-year-old filmmaker Kane Parsons, premiered as a feature-length adaptation of his analog horror web series. Produced by A24, the movie incorporates lore from Parsons’ online universe, including the fictional Async research institute and entities known as Still Lifes.

Parsons, who gained prominence on YouTube as Kane Pixels with the 2022 short 'The Backrooms (Found Footage),' became the youngest director in A24 history to adapt his own web series into a theatrical release. His YouTube channel has accumulated over 190 million views.

In the film, Chiwetel Ejiofor portrays Clark, a failed architect and former furniture store owner who becomes psychologically unstable after entering the Backrooms. Renate Reinsve plays Dr. Mary Kline, Clark’s therapist, who follows him into the dimension through a portal and is taken captive by him. Clark demands that Mary validate his bitterness and aggression as his mental state deteriorates.

After escaping the Backrooms, Mary is captured by Async scientists and brought to their facility. There, an employee named Phil, played by Mark Duplass, interrogates her and explains that the Backrooms act as an echo chamber for memories, which accounts for the distorted replicas of real people and places. Phil implies that Mary may never be allowed to leave the facility.

The film ends with a final shot of a distorted, Still Life version of Mary now trapped in the Backrooms. Still Lifes are described as disfigured, human-like entities created when the Backrooms fail to accurately replicate people.

Parsons said in a podcast interview, 'I don’t like drowning people in lore and mythology. I think it’s an irresponsible creative choice. It happens a ton online when an independent artist gets to the spotlight. You just get this weird bloat where it becomes very alien to people...who aren’t avid fans of this thing and are approaching it for the first time. They’re suddenly coming into it, and it’s made inherently for YouTube channel dissection.'

He also said in a podcast interview, 'Sequels are more than an option—it’s been the intention since 2022. This film is the first part in what I would desire to be several narrative steps, in terms of approaching what I consider to be the true heart of the idea. I just don’t think you could get to it in the time you have for a single movie.'