Three years ago, it was announced that some of today’s biggest genre companies – A24, James Wan‘s Atomic Monster, the Stranger Things makers at 21 Laps, and Planet of the Apes producers Chernin Entertainment – are joining forces on a new project called Backrooms, which marks the feature directorial debut of director and VFX artist Kane Parsons, who is now 20 years old. We’ve been waiting for this one a while, but the wait will come to an end soon, as Backrooms is aiming for a May 29 theatrical release. Today, a teaser trailer has dropped online and can be seen in the embed above.
Cast
Backrooms went into production around eight months ago with Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave) and Renate Reinsve (The Worst Person in the World) heading up the cast. They’re joined by Mark Duplass (Creep), Finn Bennett (True Detective), Lukita Maxwell (Shrinking), and Avan Jogia (Zombieland: Double Tap).
A24 and Chernin Entertainment are co-financing Backrooms. Patino is producing the film alongside Shawn Levy and Dan Levine of 21 Laps and James Wan and Michael Clear of Atomic Monster. Alayna Glasthal is overseeing the project for Atomic Monster, while the company’s Judson Scott executive produces.
Story
Backrooms is based on a series of viral videos Parsons released through his YouTube channel Kane Pixels. If you were to splice those videos together they would reach feature length, but the feature version of Backrooms is going to be something entirely new. The screenplay for the feature has been written by Roberto Patino (DMZ).
Deadline previously noted that details as to the plot of the sci-fi horror feature are under wraps. But in the original short, a young filmmaker’s fall into another dimension leaves him wandering through an unsettlingly yellow, empty and labyrinthine office space, which may or may not be home to otherworldly beings. The film’s title and setting draw inspiration from the imagery of a creepypasta (or internet urban legend) published to the website 4chan in 2019. An interview with Parsons on ABC provided the information that his series tells the story of a shadowy organization, called ASYNC, which in the late 1980s opens a portal connecting the real world to The Backrooms.
Are you interested in Backrooms? Take a look at the teaser trailer, then let us know by leaving a comment below.
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