I’ve seen Backrooms twice already. I thought that was enough, but I might need to go for the third time around now that it’s streaming with my HBO Max subscription. I’ve been going down a yellow-wallpaper-colored rabbit hole down the online theories for Kane Parsons’ summer horror blockbuster, and it left me with a lot more to think about. SPOILERS are ahead!
Now, Backrooms was my first introduction to Parsons’ viral world. I’ve since binged the whole YouTube series, of course, but I’m not really gonna touch on that much. I’ll be focusing on what happens in the film. So, if you have cork boards already in your closet from years of theorizing about all the Backrooms lore, by all means, feel free to dust them off, but our notes are probably different. That’s what’s kind of fun about this, though, isn’t it? Anyways, here are all the big theories I’ve been learning about one of the biggest 2026 movies:
The Backrooms Is Just A Giant Scanner
One of the most popular theories I’ve seen through my own journey down the Backrooms has to do with one of the only things the movie tells us about Async Research. At the end, Mark Duplass’s character of Phil tells Mary that the company originally manufactured MRI machines before they found the Backrooms dimension.
Naturally, fans have been talking about how the Backrooms perhaps function a lot like an MRI machine/giant scanner itself. According to theorists (via Reddit), it’s always scanning itself, so the more someone spends there, the more accurate one’s copies of themselves could be.
While many of the copies have furniture stuffing inside them, Clark’s copy, Captain Clark, had a lot more going on, didn’t he? At the end, when Captain Clark gets his own MRI done, it’s briefly shown that he has his own skeletal system and even bled when Mary hit him with a hat rack. Because Clark stuck around for a while, the Backrooms could have made a more accurate copy of him. It’s an interesting theory for sure, but not among my favorites.
Backrooms Is Constructed Out Of Memories
A more complex popular theory about Backrooms is that the mysterious place is made up of memories. Memories that are often taken too literally and often not accurate. I think about this theory, and I think about when I’m in a dream and one moment something looks right and then I look again, and the setting has changed positions or something. Backrooms and memory definitely feel connected, so I totally get why people are talking about this idea.
On one hand, this definitely helps explain why some of Mary’s memories are found in the Backrooms, and on the other hand, it opens a Pandora’s Box of questions about how this would even work. I feel like there’d be more people if this were the case, but it’s definitely worth thinking about.
One Reddit user suggested that the Backrooms are building places out of memory “without filling in context or details”. This theory definitely makes me feel icky, and taps into why the movie scared me a lot more than I thought it would. Seeing things that are familiar and personal to us be reconstructed and manufactured in odd ways really creeps me out now!!
Time Works Differently Inside The Backrooms
Building on the previous theory’s attempt to explain Mary’s memories, another theory takes a different approach. According to other theorists, time could work differently in the backrooms and may not be linear as it is perceived in the real world. And there could even be time travel involved.
I watched an interesting video on Instagram where someone pointed out that Phil looks a different age when he’s in the real world versus the Backrooms at the end – potentially supporting this theory. It would also explain why he’s so shocked when he sees Clark on TV as a pirate in that scene with him and his family. Additionally, when he asks Mary at the end about how she got here, he could mean “here” as in a particular time period different from her own in the 1990s. She went through so many rooms, is it possible that at one point she found herself in a different time?
The Clark At The End Of Backrooms Isn’t The Original Clark
OK, now this one really trips me out. A lot of people think that the Clark at the end of Backrooms who kidnaps Mary to that table is not the original Clark. They think he’s an advanced copy of him that the Backrooms have created.
The reason people think this is because Clark no longer has a distinct forehead scar that he had earlier in the film. People think Clark actually died during that found footage scene, and the Clark that Mary meets is a “still life,” but one that’s very well constructed by the Backrooms. While Clark shows the “still life” people who have stuffing under their skin, once again, we know that Captain Clark exists and has bones, organs, and blood. So, it is possible for the Backrooms to have created a copy like Clark.
The Big Question These Theories Leave Me With
Crazy, right? I love how there are so many ways one could explain the Backrooms right now, and it feels very intentionally vague and mysterious right now. After reading all these theories, there’s one thought that really sticks with me. Is the Backrooms a place that Async created (either accidentally or on purpose), or is it a place that’s always existed that they found?
My intuition says it’s a manufactured place, especially considering all the aesthetics of manufactured, man-made places that this movie is speaking to. I certainly hope the sequel, set to be among upcoming A24 movies, gets a chance to play with and debunk some of these theories along with introducing new anomalies and questions. I think it’s possible that multiple of these theories are true at once!
