Backrooms spawned from a YouTube series, and if you want to familiarize yourself with the world, these are the videos to check out.

This weekend’s horror hits are bringing young people back into theaters in a way that’s already reshaping the industry.

So what exactly are the Backrooms, and why is everyone so very excited about this new horror movie? Like so many modern horror concepts, the Backrooms began as a meme on 4Chan. In 2018, someone anonymously posted an image of a yellow room where the walls just didn’t fit right.

Against a production budget of $10 million, co-financed by A24 and Chernin Entertainment, the numbers represent one of the most profitable launches of 2026 and the clearest signal yet that the generation of filmmakers who built audiences on YouTube is now dominating theatrical cinema.

The internet’s creepiest liminal nightmare gets a big-screen upgrade. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. Based on the viral YouTube series created by Kane Parsons, The Backrooms' first ...

Backroomsis the stuff of pure nightmares. It may originate with an internet creepypasta — one that blossomed from a single picture of an empty HobbyTown in Oshkosh, Wisconsin — but the reason this particular legend resonated and spread was its connection to recurring dreams many of us share.