A24 has officially dropped the first full trailer for Backrooms, the long-anticipated horror adaptation of one of the internet’s most unsettling urban legends. It looks every bit as eerie as fans hoped.
Directed by Kane Parsons, the young filmmaker behind the viral YouTube series that helped define the “liminal horror” aesthetic, Backrooms brings the concept to the big screen without sanding down its rough edges. If anything, the trailer leans hard into the analog dread that made the original videos such a phenomenon, blending found-footage textures with a more expansive, narrative-driven approach.
The trailer teases a story centered on a mysterious dimension hidden just beneath reality - an endless maze of yellow-lit hallways, empty office spaces, and impossible architecture that feels wrong on a deeply unsettling level. The film also boasts a remarkably critically-acclaimed cast, including Chiwetel Ejiofor as a man who stumbles into the otherworldly space, while recent Academy Award-nominated Renate Reinsve plays a therapist drawn into the mystery as more people begin to disappear into it.
Rather than over-explaining its mythology, Parsons’ film seeks to thrive on ambiguity. There are lingering shots of flickering fluorescent lights, distant noises echoing through empty corridors, and glimpses of something lurking just out of frame. It’s a smart move, preserving the unnerving tension that made the original creepypasta and Parsons’ short form videos so effective in the first place.
Produced by A24 alongside horror heavyweights like James Wan’s Atomic Monster, the film looks poised to be one of the studio’s most ambitious genre swings yet, translating a deeply online horror concept into a theatrical experience without losing its identity.
Backrooms is set to hit theaters on May 29, 2026, and if this trailer is any indication, it might finally give shape to a nightmare that was never meant to be understood.
