There’s an unsettling low hum ringing. Yellow walls stretch much too far down the halls. It’s a place that feels so familiar, yet incredibly wrong. What started as a single unsettling image circulating online has now turned into one of the internet’s most recognizable horror concepts, known most commonly as the Backrooms. This digital-age myth has managed to spread across different forums, inspired viral videos and is now heading to theatres as a major film release.
Despite being so popular online, it’s still unknown to some of the public. The Backrooms are typically described as an endless maze of empty, office-like rooms–typically featuring yellowish wallpaper, buzzing fluorescent lights and worn carpeting. The concept revolves around the idea that someone could accidentally “no-clip” out of reality, like in a video game, and fall into this strange, isolated dimension. The term “no-clip” originates from early 1990s video game development, with the phrase first appearing in popular id Software game “Commander Keen: Secret of the Oracle” in 1991. “No-clipping” was essentially a cheat that allowed players to disable collision detection and phase through walls.
The Backrooms originated in 2019 on 4chan, a website for individuals to post bulletins about topics stretching between games, anime and even politics. An anonymous user posted an image of a bland, empty office space along with a short, eerie description reading, “If you’re not careful and you no-clip out of reality… you’ll end up in the Backrooms.”
This idea quickly spread across platforms like Reddit, where users began expanding the concept into a larger narrative. This phenomenon is called a creepypasta. A creepypasta refers to a collection of fictional horror-related stories or images that have been copied and pasted across the internet with the intent of striking fear into readers. Other popular creepypastas include Sirenhead, Slender Man and Jeff the Killer. However, those creators have been credited to a name. The lack of a known author made the story feel more like an urban legend than a traditional piece of fiction.
In 2022, the Backrooms had reached a new level of popularity thanks to YouTuber Kane Parsons, also known as Kane Pixels online. On Jan. 7 of 2022, “The Backrooms (Found Footage)” was published, featuring a nine-minute and 14-second-long video presenting the concept as a realistic, VHS-style recording. Almost instantly, the video went viral, gaining millions of views and launching an ongoing YouTube series.
The series depicted a fictional organization researching the Backrooms dressed head-to-toe in hazmat suits, with no clear faces in view. The audio was muffled and unsettling, which added to the uncanny aesthetic that had been built up over the years. Parsons’ work gave structure to a previously loose concept, helping bring it into mainstream attention. Parsons revealed he used software Blender and Adobe After Effects to create the digital space of the Backrooms. In 2024, a team of Discord users managed to uncover the true origins of the original picture, discovering that it was taken on June 12, 2002, during a renovation of HobbyTown USA that was being turned into an RC car racetrack. It was traced back to an archived HobbyTown renovation blog. The exact location of the image was also released, available for anyone to visit, just roughly nine hours from Platte City in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
Just a year before the origins were discovered, A24, a popular film company, announced on Feb. 6, 2023, that the Backrooms would be arriving on the big screen in May of 2026. A24 was founded in 2012 and has since garnered many accolades, including 16 Academy Awards won out of 49 nominations. The company has produced high-grossing films such as Everything Everywhere All at Once, Lady Bird, Midsommar, Waves, Priscilla, and, most recently, Marty Supreme and the Drama. The movie is being directed by Parsons, who is credited with blowing up the franchise, despite many users online adding “lore”. Despite the mystery of the original image now spoiled, fans are still ecstatic over the prospect of what started as a simple online post now moving onto the big screen. The film’s official trailer was released on March 31, 2026, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve. This marks a major step in the Backrooms transition from an internet story to a Hollywood production.
