A new trailer for A24's The Backrooms has arrived, and it's maybe even creepier than the first.
In the brief clip, which can be viewed above, Chiwetel Ejiofor tries desperately to convince his therapist (Renate Reinsve) that he discovered a creepy, unexplored world in the backroom of what appears to be a furniture store. She doesn't believe him, however, until she ends up taking the trip for herself... and the walls start closing in. There's also some of that low-quality camcorder found footage, which is truly what made Kane Parsons' YouTube series so eerie. It seems that Ejiofor's character recruits more and more people to help him explore the Backrooms, and that it, unsurprisingly, doesn't go very well.
The official logline for the film reads: "A therapist ventures into an otherworldly dimension in search of her missing patient." The cast includes Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, Lukita Maxwell, and Avan Jogia. Parsons directs the feature-length film from a screenplay penned by Westworld writers Robert Patino and Will Soodik.
The premise of the film is a bit different from director Parsons' viral YouTube series of the same name, which first premiered in 2022 (though they both concern missing persons). The Backrooms was originally based on the equally viral photo of an empty HobbyTown store that was undergoing renovation, which began circling the internet in 2019. The photo in question is an aggressively yellow and damp image of the back room of the store, with some off-putting fluorescent lighting on top. From that photo (which also inspired Severance), Parsons built a terrifying world in which a 1990s company discovers The Complex, a web of liminal spaces where people go missing after being pulled in.
Backrooms is set to hit theaters on May 29, 2026. For more, check out our guide to all the upcoming horror movies heading our way.
