One of my most persistent and hindering irrational fears is being trapped in an unfamiliar, or even otherworldly, environment. For this reason, The Backrooms is one upcoming horror movie I am eagerly anticipating, but also with a healthy dose of caution.
Those who suffer from claustrophobia might be understandably hesitant to check out this upcoming A24 movie, which has mysterious origins that have sent a chill down the spines of fans of viral short horror stories. In the following guide, we cover everything that we do know about The Backrooms, including when you should be prepared to “noclip” into your local theater to see it.
What Is The Backrooms Release Date?
As of mid-2025, there is no official release date set for The Backrooms. So, we likely should not expect it to show up on our upcoming 2025 movie schedule. However, there is reason to believe that it could appear on the upcoming 2026 movie schedule, but we will get into why later.
It was previously reported by IndieWire in February 2023 that the upcoming sci-fi movie was set to go into production later that year. Yet, according to Variety, The Backrooms was only officially greenlit by A24 in June 2025. That is almost as perplexing as the mystery behind this phenomenon.
What Backrooms Is About
The Backrooms is the name attributed to a terrifying alternate reality consisting mostly of a seemingly inescapable maze of dimly lit hallways and corridors covered in a sickly yellow wallpaper where strange, living dangers lurk. The concept became a viral hit on the Internet in 2019 when a mundane, but somehow unsettling image of unknown origin was shared on Creepypasta.com with the following text:
If you’re not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you’ll end up in the Backrooms, where it’s nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in. God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby because it sure as hell has heard you.
The image was later discovered to have been pulled from a blog post chronicling the renovation of a Wisconsin HobbyTown store, according to Forbes, but the author of the ominous message accompanying it remains unknown. I wonder if the writer is proud of the immense number of stories and films they have inspired, most notably the Backrooms series on YouTube from creator Kane Parsons, which mostly chronicles a secret organization's exploration of the dimension. The popular animated webseries, presented mostly in a found footage thriller style, is the direct inspiration for the forthcoming A24 horror movie.
The Backrooms Cast
One of the most interesting things about Kane Parsons’ Backrooms series is that, since the series is predominantly animated with a free software called Blender, rarely is a character’s face ever shown. However, that is apparently going to change, based on the recent announcements of who will be included in A24’s The Backrooms cast, from the same Variety article that reported it was greenlit.
Chiwetel Ejiofor
Set to enter the world of The Backrooms is Chiwetel Ejiofor, who is known for his Academy Award-nominated role in the Best Picture Oscar winner, 12 Years a Slave, in addition to acclaimed performances in favorites like Amistad, the classic drag movie Kinky Boots, Children of Men, and The Martian. The English actor has not done much horror outside The Backrooms, but is part of the Marvel movies in order (as Doctor Strange’s Mordo), played the title role of the sci-fi series The Man Who Fell to Earth, and recently worked with horror auteur Mike Flanagan on his lightest film yet: an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Life of Chuck.
Renate Reinsve
Also noclipping into The Backrooms is Renate Reinsve, who starred in an acclaimed A24 movie called A Different Man in 2024 and, before then, earned raves for her performance in the 2021 romantic-dramedy, The Worst Person in the World. The Norwegian actor and Presumed Innocent star also has previous experience with horror, having appeared in a zombie movie from her native land called Handling the Undead, as well as sci-fi, having co-led the romantic Another End.
Kane Parsons Is Directing The Movie
There are rare instances of an artist landing the opportunity to make a live-action adaptation of an animated project they created, but Kane Parsons is now one of those few. The YouTuber, also known on the platform as Kane Pixels, is helming The Backrooms for A24 and, at just 19 years old, is the youngest director to ever collaborate with the company.
Handing screenwriting duties, however, is Robert Patino, who is known for penning the 2014 crime thriller Cut Bank and an episode of Netflix’s Zero Day (which Stephen King thinks is “terrific”), as well as producing TV series like Westworld, which earned him two Emmy nominations, and Sons of Anarchy. He also shares an executive producing credit for The Backrooms, along with fellow producers James Wan (known for creating the Conjuring Universe) and Deadpool and Wolverine director Shawn Levy.
The Backrooms Is Expected To Shoot Summer 2025
The wait for the cinematic adaptation of The Backrooms is coming to an end. According to the earlier report by Variety, A24 plans to begin production on the film in the summer of 2025. Whether that means cameras start rolling in July or August is not specified. Hopefully, though, Parsons and co. get to it soon enough to deliver the thrills fans of this phenomenon have been dying to see on the big screen.
You better be careful not to noclip out of reality any time soon, or you could miss out on what could be one of the best horror movies to come from A24 yet.
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