Recommendations of the Editorial team
“The Backrooms,” perhaps the most anticipated horror film of the year, hits theaters on June 4th. Its creation tells a typical success story that comes from viral clips: The directorial debut of the DIY filmmaker Kane Parsons is the screen version of his YouTube videos, with which he has become a genre celebrity since 2019, and several clips of which have caused anxiety on social networks.
The “Backrooms” are seemingly limitless interior spaces or environments that can only be accessed by gliding out of reality. In videos from the first-person perspective of a hiker, they are monotonous, deserted structures that expand like endless labyrinths and often appear automatically generated: pools, halls, hallways or stairs to the sky that end abruptly. In the background there is usually a soundtrack on which every movement sounds echoing, sometimes you can also hear wind. The thrill of these minute-long videos is that you expect a monster that simply doesn’t come (or, as in “The Backrooms”, very late).
This is Liminal Space Art. Everything looks both familiar and fake. Liminal space art seems eerie because it shows places that should actually be used but are empty, like shopping centers or ball pits. This doesn’t match our expectations. Our brain recognizes the location, but something is missing. And this gap creates an uncomfortable feeling.
Why the brain reacts this way
Normally, noise and movement help us understand a situation. None of this exists in these images because no resolution is presented. We look for explanations but can’t find an answer. This uncertainty can quickly feel like a threat, even though nothing is happening.
Plus, many of these images look familiar. That’s what makes them so disturbing. They remind you of your own experiences, for example from childhood. The optics therefore play a crucial role. The recordings look like old photos or surveillance cameras from the 1990s, like vaporwave or the VHS films from “I Saw the TV Glow”: slightly blurry recordings with outdated furnishings and dropouts. A feeling of nostalgia plus discomfort arises because the past no longer seems as golden as it was stored. Anyone who wants to stretch the envelope very widely sees Edward Hopper as the fundamental inspiration of the “Backrooms”. It definitely can’t be Kubrick’s The Shining, as its hallways end in concrete horror.
The backrooms seem as if they exist outside the normal world. Such images are spreading on the Internet, probably because they work without much explanation, just showing a moment without context. It remains to be seen whether “The Backrooms” fulfills this promise of horror – Liminal Space Art derives its appeal from the brief impressions that are not integrated into explanatory stories. And they usually don’t have any monster jump scares, unlike in Kane Parsons’ videos with the “Bacteria” monster (see photo). “The Backrooms” definitely has to be seen.
