Backrooms

Premise

Set primarily in the 1990s, the series revolves around the Async Research Institute, a fictional MRI research institute that discovers and makes an entry to the Backrooms—in-universe designated as "the Complex" by Async—and attempts to study and document it.

Following this discovery, missing persons cases skyrocket as people are pulled into the Complex from locations outside Async's facility. Most installments are centered around various anomalies Async encounters inside the Complex, while the installments titled "Found Footage" are from the perspective of citizens finding their way into the Complex on their own.

Development and themes

After making several Attack on Titan–themed videos, Parsons was looking for "new things to do". He was between projects and was inspired to create a found-footage-style animation of the Backrooms after rediscovering a render he had saved some time earlier. Parsons was vaguely aware of the Backrooms from the original image and caption he had seen on Instagram two years prior. However, he was not aware of the community behind it. In an interview, he stated:"I came across the original image on my computer [...] and I just thought, huh, it would be interesting to see if I could go to my 3D software, Blender, and try to recreate a scene in this environment."He used Blender to create a test animation of a chair in the Backrooms being thrown and hitting a wall. The shot was later used in the first video of the series. Parsons used both Adobe After Effects and Blender to create the first video; it took Parsons a month to complete the short.

Parsons expanded the concept into a series shortly after posting the first video. The series establishes plot points such as Async, a fictional research facility that discovers the Backrooms in the late 1980s and conducts active research in it throughout the series. Various character animations included in these later installments required the utilization of motion capture suits.

In an interview with ABC News in 2022, Parsons described the series as "a slow burn story focusing on both the politics of Async and the United States government, as well as the otherworldly, confusing functions of The Complex, or The Backrooms". Parsons credits the Internet aesthetic of liminal spaces as an influence for his series. In a 2022 interview with Vice, interviewer Andrew Lloyd wrote "For [Parsons], the Backrooms is a physical manifestation of a poorly remembered past, appealing to those with a cloudy recollection of the late 90s and early 2000s". And quoted Parsons as saying:I mostly remember that time through little glimpses of memories here and there and then family photos [...] The flash is always on, the lighting is gross looking, there's yellow walls, the white balance is all off.

Reception

The series has been considered a viral hit by multiple outlets, with the first video of the series receiving positive reviews from critics. Kotaku praised the series for exercising restraint in its horror and mystery. Writing for Bloody Disgusting, critic Luis H. C. interpreted the web series as being indirectly inspired by the novel House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, writing that the videos "perfectly capture the book's liminal atmosphere by adapting ideas that have permeated popular culture in the two decades since House of Leaves was published".

Parsons said he had "no idea" there had been an existing fan community behind the original Backrooms creepypasta, and recalled being surprised to see comments on his first video from people saying: "you're doing the Backrooms wrong. What is this?" or "there's supposed to be smilers on level one". He said that this continued until eventually "people almost forgot about the old one" and his version had "sort of been adopted" by fans. For his work on the series, Parsons received a Creator Honor award from The Game Theorists during the 12th Streamy Awards. The series' first installment garnered 77 million views over the course of four years, with the series collectively garnering a total of over 197 million views.

Film adaptation

After publishing "The Backrooms (Found Footage)", Parsons was approached by several studios for a feature-length adaptation. He initially pitched the idea as a comic serialization as opposed to a feature-length film. In February 2023, A24, who successfully bid on the film, announced that work had begun on a film adaptation of the Backrooms based on Parsons's videos, with Parsons directing. Roberto Patino was initially set to write the screenplay, but was replaced by Will Soodik. James Wan and Michael Clear through Atomic Monster; Shawn Levy, Dan Cohen, and Dan Levine through 21 Laps Entertainment; and Peter Chernin through Chernin Entertainment were set to produce.

The film was written to be in direct continuity with the series. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve star in the film, with principal photography having started in the summer of 2025, and concluding in August 2025. The film was released in the United States on May 29, 2026.

An extended version of the film, titled Backrooms: Everything Must Go Edition, was released on July 3, featuring an additional 15 minutes of footage. The bonus footage will be available on Parsons's YouTube channel as he considers it an episode of his web series, although Parsons later clarified on his official Discord server that its upload would be delayed beyond the week it was initially slated for due to the ongoing theatrical release of the extended version of the film.