Maybe you’ve heard it: YouTube won’t kill cinema. It will actually be the cinema save!
Within two weeks last May, two very different films were released that turned the question of what delights multiplex audiences or leaves them indifferent. One is about a romantic dream that gradually turns into a nightmare. The other transforms a bland office complex into an endless realm of psychological menace. Both films can easily be classified as “modern horror”. Both take familiar genre ideas and infuse them with a gonzo, Gen-Z energy. And both were made on modest budgets by directors under 30 who built their fan bases through YouTube channels. Each of the two titles broke records for their respective studio. In space no one hears your scream. On the Internet, however, the ability to scare people and give them goosebumps can now be translated into box office numbers – and that’s making Hollywood sit up and take notice.
“Obsession,” directed by 26-year-old Curry Barker, throws you straight into a textbook romantic comedy scenario: Bear (Michael Johnston) idolizes his colleague Nikki (Inde Navarette). For him she is the love of his life. She most likely considers him a good friend – even if their interactions do seem a bit flirty. On the day he finally wants to ask Nikki out on a real date, Bear buys a trinket from a curio shop called “One Wish Willow” – a supposedly magical stick that, if broken, will grant a wish. When the opportunity arises to finally confess his feelings to Nikki, our man screws it up badly. Out of sheer frustration, he breaks the branch in half and wishes that his crush loves him more than any other person in the world. The magic works – but unfortunately far too well.
The scenario is a tried-and-tested classic of the “careful what you wish for” variety – fertile ground for everyone from Stephen King to The Simpsons. (In fact, it was a “Simpsons” episode based on WW Jacobs’ 1902 short story about a severed monkey’s paw with supernatural powers that inspired Barker to write it here.) The tone shifts from slowly building unease to full-blown madness, escalating in a way that works beautifully. Apart from Andy Richter, who plays a small supporting role as a shopkeeper, the cast consists of largely unknowns – although Navarette, who plays the obsessed young woman with a devotion that borders on the obsessive, will probably soon move into other spheres professionally.
Barker’s career has already taken off. Like some notable horror filmmakers — most notably “Get Out” auteur Jordan Peele and “Weapons” director Zach Cregger — he started out as a sketch comedian before using his talents to garner online audiences. After “Obsession” premiered in the Midnight Madness section of the Toronto International Film Festival in 2025, a real bidding war broke out. Focus Features reportedly snapped up the film for $15 million. It started in third place and – contrary to all industry logic – increased by almost 40 percent (!) in the second weekend, an almost unprecedented jump. And it might have been the most-watched film in the country had there not been an equally raucous horror film hot on its heels.
“Backrooms” is the work of Kane Parsons, a 21-year-old from the Bay Area who posted a series of fake found footage clips online — centered around a cryptic institute that explores mysterious, physically impossible spaces known as “the backrooms.” These shorts – a subgenre of user-generated horror fiction known as creepypasta – caught the attention of some genre-savvy gatekeepers, tastemakers and, crucially, A24. The hipster-cool studio signaled interest in using these viral fragments as the basis for a feature-length project, and the young director known as @KanePixels suddenly found himself with a lucrative deal.
Parsons builds a world
Parsons’ feature debut develops a dizzying, minimalist mythology from his short films. The story follows Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the manager of a furniture store in Silicon Valley. Late one evening, Clark spots what looks like a glimmer of light coming through a crack in the store’s basement wall. Even stranger, he can simply walk through the wall, exploring an endless series of halls, corridors, and strangely shaped subterranean alcoves. He mentions it to his therapist Mary (Renate Reinsve from “Sentimental Value”), who thinks Clark is having a breakdown.
Then Clark disappears without a trace. Mary visits the shop, which appears deserted. She also discovers the multiplying back spaces of the title. She follows the rabbit into the burrow. And then seriously strange things start to happen.
As of this writing, Backrooms has grossed more than $200 million worldwide, replacing Marty Supreme as A24’s highest-grossing film of all time. “Obsession” also secured the title of Focus Features’ biggest hit of all time. The fact that these two films were released within a week was pure coincidence – but the fact that both were released shortly before the end of final exams at US colleges was anything but a disadvantage. And the double whammy of these comparatively cheaply produced horror films, which made their IP-heavy competition (“The Mandalorian and Grogu”, “Masters of the Universe”) look old over several early summer weekends, is the development that has now triggered countless debates.
Renaissance or crest of a wave?
The crucial question is: Are we at the dawn of a Gen-Z horror renaissance, fueled by a perfect storm of young talent, new technology, online fan bases and a creator-friendly platform capable of bypassing traditional avenues and reaching millions of eyes directly? Or is this just the crest of a wave that has been building for a long time? New Zealand filmmakers Danny and Michael Philippou—twins better known by their YouTube name RackkaRackka, where their massive, insane videos wowed millions of viewers—became indie darlings thanks to their 2022 A24 hit “Talk to Me.” Hawaiian actor and content creator Mark Fischbach, known as Markiplier, made his self-published video game adaptation “Iron Lung” one of this year’s biggest return on investment hits. (Budget: $3 million. Box office: $51.2 million.) Although both the Philippou brothers and Fischbach are in their thirties, they have navigated the networks of the Internet so deftly that they showed a younger generation how digital fan bases can be transformed into real moviegoers. Not to mention that younger film fans – the ones who made A24 a brand name among cinephiles and crashed websites on pre-sales for 70mm screenings of Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” – now have collective purchasing power with which to impose their will on box office numbers.
Yes, this could be a fad – a short-lived anomaly before the next glut of IP blockbusters descends on theaters like a seasonal plague of locusts. But both “Obsession” and “Backrooms” have benefited from alternative creative avenues, organic word-of-mouth campaigns and a general franchise fatigue that has 18- to 28-year-olds seeking other forms of entertainment. How much you can relate to these films may vary – but you can’t deny that they shape a certain cinematic experience. The question is whether this moment will develop into a real movement. We’d bet a load of bloody monkey paws that the answer is yes. Somewhere out there sits a teenager with a Blender suite and a dream, hoping to become the next big name. There has never been a better time to make that wish come true.