Check Out the New Trailer for Backrooms

A24 has unveiled the chilling trailer for Backrooms, the highly anticipated horror feature that transforms one of the internet’s most disturbing urban legends into a full-scale cinematic nightmare. Directed by Kane Parsons, the creator behind the viral Backrooms YouTube phenomenon, the film looks set to become one of the most unsettling horror events of 2026. Check out the trailer now!

Set in 1990, Backrooms follows Clark, a struggling furniture salesman played by Academy Award nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor, who discovers a mysterious doorway hidden in the basement of his showroom. Beyond it lies an endless maze of eerily familiar rooms and corridors bathed in sickly fluorescent light. What begins as curiosity quickly spirals into obsession as Clark and those around him become consumed by the terrifying labyrinth and the strange forces lurking within it.

The trailer teases a haunting blend of psychological horror, existential dread, and surreal imagery that feels unlike anything currently dominating the genre. Endless yellow hallways, distorted office spaces, buzzing fluorescent lights, and impossible architecture create an atmosphere that feels both deeply familiar and profoundly wrong. It taps directly into the uncanny terror that made the original Backrooms videos a viral sensation online.

Here’s the original viral YouTube video that got this film greenlit and the creator hired by A24 to direct it:

What makes Backrooms especially exciting is the creative force behind it. Kane Parsons was only a teenager when his original short film exploded online and amassed millions of views, earning a reputation as “the scariest video on the internet.” Now, at just 20 years old, Parsons becomes the youngest director in A24 history with a feature film that expands his mythology into something massive, cinematic, and deeply immersive.

Alongside Ejiofor, the film stars Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, and Lukita Maxwell. The project is backed by an impressive team of genre heavyweights including producers James Wan, Shawn Levy, and Atomic Monster, adding even more anticipation around what could become horror’s next defining franchise.

Unlike traditional jump-scare horror, Backrooms appears to lean heavily into atmosphere, paranoia, emotional trauma, and psychological collapse. The result looks like a deeply unnerving descent into liminal horror that blurs the line between reality, memory, and nightmare.

Backrooms releases in South African cinemas on 29 May 2026. Watch the trailer below if you dare.

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