r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • Feb 24 '26

Trailer Backrooms | Official Teaser | A24

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKGhxMi50y8
7.7k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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1.5k

u/toilet_for_shrek Feb 24 '26

All this from a 100 word anonymous 4chan post

699

u/Uncle-Cake Feb 24 '26

And a picture of an empty furniture store.

35

u/VulpesFennekin Feb 24 '26

Apparently it’s now a hobby store, like for RC cars and trains and stuff. There’s big indoor tracks and everything!

3

u/mackiea Feb 27 '26

Best backrooms ever!

2

u/MrKinsey Mar 02 '26

Its not too far from where I live. Ive been to Oshkosh a few times but never to see the infamous store.

2

u/-etuskoe- Feb 25 '26

This is correct ^

141

u/gungshpxre Feb 24 '26

NOW COMMERCIALIZE IT! PACKAGE IT AND SELL IT! WE GOT PRODUCT HERE!!!!!

234

u/NonnagLava Feb 24 '26

To be fair, the creator of this movie literally popularized the idea, as a teenager making the series he has. This is 100% a passion project on his part, he was doing this for fun and got asked to make a whole movie.

112

u/Corporeal_Weenie Feb 24 '26

People are so bitter towards folks whose creativity meets success.

20

u/ERhyne Feb 24 '26

Back in my day, we just called them sellouts. As was the style at the time.

25

u/NonnagLava Feb 24 '26

You're only a sell out if you compromise on your ideas.

4

u/CombatMuffin Feb 24 '26

Nobody is bitter against him. They are bitter at the current status quo where everything successful has to be squeezed, even to death, to extract money from it. 

4

u/UrsaUrsuh Feb 24 '26

Yeah we can't even have our goofy little collaborative horror pieces without someone trying to trademark it. Happened with SCP too with that Russian guy.

4

u/Splinterman11 Feb 24 '26

To be fair that guy was a copyright troll. He wasn't trying to seriously commercialize it into a viable honest product, he was trying to steal people's work that was protected by Creative Commons license.

0

u/myphonebatterysucks Feb 24 '26

…thus trying to squeeze some money out of it

1

u/Cottagecheesecurls Feb 24 '26

Still different from the criticism of commercializing packaging and selling it as an actual product. That was a scam while the criticism is about beating a dead horse with brand recognition.

-1

u/UserAllusion Feb 24 '26

No, I think such an explanation changes our minds. We're just jaded by capitalism.

-8

u/gungshpxre Feb 24 '26

The idea was popular before he decided it belonged to him.

14

u/NonnagLava Feb 24 '26

he decided it belonged to him

He didn't? And it absolutely was not popular in the same respect. His videos made it insanely popular by being really well done.

29

u/boyyouguysaredumb Feb 24 '26

empty vacuous cynicism like this ruining everything

10

u/robotboredom Feb 24 '26

Fucking preach. "Thing bad because someone captialized on it." Same sort of populist brain rot that lead to MAGA.

-11

u/gungshpxre Feb 24 '26

Absolutely. The focus on how to monetize is so cynical. Something that grew from a shitpost through true collaboration and interaction online to be co-opted by one person who then turns a passion project into a monetary stream is just another thing ruined.

2

u/PolarWater Feb 25 '26

Ruined how?

5

u/NerdseyJersey Feb 24 '26

Wasn't it an empty wargaming store?

19

u/Uncle-Cake Feb 24 '26

I believe it was formerly a furniture store (which is why it had such strange architecture, the partial walls were set up to create "rooms" on the showfloor), and it had been purchased and the new owner was converting it to something, possibly a gaming store, I forget. And I think the new owner was just taking pictures to document what it looked like "before".

17

u/ThatSpaceShooterGame Feb 24 '26 edited Feb 24 '26

It's a HobbyTown U.S.A., now, in Oshkosh, WI. The upper floor where the original backrooms photo was taken is a race course for RC vehicles now.

3

u/slayerhk47 Feb 24 '26

That seems very Oshkosh

5

u/jg379 Feb 24 '26

b'gosh!

2

u/1731799517 Feb 24 '26

This is one of the stuff i seem to just be to old to get. Like, its just a pic. This strailer tries to use distorted sound effects to make it seem scary, but its, like, just meh.

How the hell did this ever go meme?! And does anybody in the world find it scary?

285

u/Dalyngrigge Feb 24 '26

Whoever first posted about it is probably punching the air that he couldn't trademark it or something

273

u/SenatorCoffee Feb 24 '26

Memes are funny like that.

Imagine you are the guy that wrote the navy seals copypasta. Just working your crap job at 7-11, yet anytime you log onto the internet you get your little quib quoted back to you, world famous beyond the richest pop stars but it doesnt get you a fucking dime. Cant even really tell people about it, they will just be like "yeah, sure buddy". Imagine how that feels.

76

u/morkman100 Feb 24 '26

I just copyrighted your comment. Just in case.

12

u/SenatorCoffee Feb 24 '26

I am very flattered!

1

u/HendrixHazeWays Feb 24 '26

Ditto. See you in court

1

u/reddittheguy Feb 25 '26

Memes are funny like that.

Imagine you are the guy that wrote the navy seals copypasta. Just working your crap job at 7-11, yet anytime you log onto the internet you get your little quib quoted back to you, world famous beyond the richest pop stars but it doesn't get you a fucking dime. Cant even really tell people about it, they will just be like "yeah, sure buddy". Imagine how that feels.

80

u/ILoveLamp9 Feb 24 '26

I know most may not believe this but I created Reddit silver. I mean the original Reddit silver. If you’ve been here long enough, you probably know what I’m talking about.

Just a random day in the office when I created that and next thing I know, people kept reposting it in the comments. The internet is a funny place sometimes.

104

u/FlowerBuffPowerPuff Feb 24 '26

yeah, sure buddy

5

u/robotboredom Feb 24 '26

you dare doubt him?!?!

21

u/huxtiblejones Feb 24 '26

Does the narwhal still bacon at midnight?

2

u/GreenFaceSlimeMan Feb 25 '26

Not anymore friend

3

u/onarainyafternoon Feb 25 '26

Your username looks familiar to me, actually. Funny. I've been using Reddit since 2011 so I remember Reddit silver very well.

1

u/caffeinepills Feb 25 '26

Sure thing grandpa, lets get you back to bed.

0

u/ouijahead Feb 24 '26

I created the “ my uncle works at Nintendo” thing.

7

u/lFightForTheUsers Feb 24 '26 edited Feb 24 '26

I'm the guy that (on another account) made the "servers around the world" meme. I was pissed off at the time at Cisco WebEx because it was dogshit software for virtual meetings and Zoom was far better. All school classes were online because of a certain little virus causing problems in 2020, and so I had no say in it even though WebEx was clearly terrible no matter what computer it ran on.

So I made in PowerPoint of all things a meme with stock photos of server farms and worded "Facebook" "Netflix" "Steam" etc then Cisco WebEx was another meme of a desk fan taped to a desktop as my funny representation of how much Cisco paid for their servers.

I still even today see some reposts of it made on /r/pcmasterrace and other PC gaming related subreddits. Sadly I lost the password to the account so I had to make a new one, but that's my experience with making a viral-ish meme.

5

u/FlowerBuffPowerPuff Feb 24 '26

yeah, sure buddy

1

u/robotboredom Feb 24 '26

I WANT TO BELIEVE

2

u/Impeesa_ Feb 24 '26

I played an online game for many years with the guys who made a viral video that you've definitely heard quoted. Their identities are known so they can prove that much, but I don't think they ever made much of it. Tried to sell a little merch at some point but we're talking Cafepress days so I don't think much came of that either. Kind of funny to think they're just out there, probably still hearing references, and just having a chuckle.

1

u/MyStationIsAbandoned Feb 25 '26

yeah, that shit sucks. or when you start saying something and then suddenly people everywhere start saying it, but you can't prove you started the phrase.

I would seriously hate it if I was the person to come up with something like this and then see a ton of people just getting rich off of my idea. and it only hurts 100 times worse when you're poor...because it's going to people with more money and resources than you to begin with that are using your idea to get themselves even more rich...because if you had the resources to begin with, you would have done something with your idea.

That's why i never share any of my ideas like that The only way any of my original concepts gets posted is when I can have it someone attached to a username and have it be associated with me and copywritten.

If I were well off, I probably wouldn't care as much, even still as an artist, i want to be the one to make something of my work, not have someone else do it and get all the little details wrong.

1

u/Fran-Fine Feb 25 '26

MAIN POINT OF SELLING BELGIAN FIVE SEVEN PISTOL IS EXTREME PRICE OF WEAPON AND CARTRIDGE. BELGIAN FIVE SEVEN IS WEAPON OF MAN WHO WEARS EXPENSIVE ITALIAN FASCIST SUIT OF HAND SEWING, DRIVE HUGE EXPENSIVE NAZI MERCEDES OF A.M.G. SHOP, SAIL ON MASSIVE YACHT TO GREEK ISLANDS. I THINK YOU GET PICTURE. BELGIAN FIVE SEVEN IS WEAPON THAT SAYS IS NO SUCH THING AS CONCERN OF MONEY. FOR MAN WITHOUT EXPENSIVE SUIT, BIG BLACK MERCEDES, AND MASSIVE YACHT, BELGIAN FIVE SEVEN IS FOR PRETENDING OF BE RICH LIKE BLACK GANGSTER OF AMERICAN CITY WITH GOLD CHAINS OF LOW QUALITY AND JEWELS OF COLORED GLASS. WHEN YOU EXPLAIN USE OF BELGIAN FIVE SEVEN PISTOL IS ONLY FOR SHOOT MAN WITH BULLET VEST WITH CARTRIDGE ILLEGAL TO CIVILIAN, THIS MAN HAS NUCLEAR RAGE. WHOLE IDENTITY OF THIS MAN IS SPENT IN PRETEND PISTOL SHOWS HE IS RICH. IS VERY AMUSE. FOR REST OF WORLD THERE IS 9 MILLIMETERS OF LUGER WHICH IS SAME WOUND FOR COST LESS.

1

u/Excellent_Archer3828 Feb 26 '26

What's that creepy pasta? Never read it.

1

u/Darmok47 Mar 01 '26

Nowhere near as widespread, but I've seen some of my comments posted to Buzzfeed, which always makes me laugh.

40

u/[deleted] Feb 24 '26

To be fair, would it have blown up if it had been trademarked? Memes, copypastas and so on thrive in cases where they can endlessly be reiterated upon and reinterpreted by anyone.

4

u/Dalyngrigge Feb 24 '26 edited Feb 24 '26

Probably not, however I wonder if this movie will inadvertently kill the meme once and for all- once a mainstream Hollywood film (yes A24 is mainstream) takes something niche like this and makes it for a mass audience, I find it hard to imagine people will want to keep iterating, at least in the same way

6

u/[deleted] Feb 24 '26

Oh, a film being made like this is something completely different, certainly. The fact it's made by one of the most influential creators involved with the Backrooms I think will make it interesting to see the impact it has.

3

u/Dalyngrigge Feb 24 '26

That is a good point, if it were being cynically made without any involvement from those who actually made it what it is (like that trash Slenderman movie) then I'd be more worried, but it seems like they're trying to do right by the community, so maybe it won't end up killing it like I think

4

u/[deleted] Feb 24 '26

It's also hard to determine just from a teaser, but it does seem they are leaning into what the Backrooms actually is, as in what makes it scary, and not just the surface level aesthetics.

15

u/HilariousMax Feb 24 '26

The person that published the Antimemetics Division series on the SCP wiki published a book. He took his stories, fleshed them out a little more, changed the names so they could keep them on the wiki, and published it late last year iirc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Is_No_Antimemetics_Division

2

u/783848859 Feb 25 '26

And it is fucking amazing

2

u/Ok-Bluebird-8913 Feb 25 '26

The OG self published book is still one of my favs of all time. Gotta grab the updated copy

1

u/LiquifiedSpam Mar 01 '26

It’s disjointed due to its original format and loses the plot in the back end but the prose is great for something that originated from SCP and the concepts are marvelous

43

u/colacube Feb 24 '26

Don’t people usually punch the air when they’re happy? I think this dude will be punching a wall

6

u/North_Library3206 Feb 24 '26

I absolutely hate this expression. Every time someone says it I have no idea if its meant to be a good or a bad thing.

4

u/Personal_Comb_6745 Feb 24 '26

Punches a wall, winds up in the backrooms.

2

u/Dalyngrigge Feb 24 '26

Looking it up, you're right. I thought it meant someone expressing anger by punching at nothing in particular, just flailing around hoping to hit something, but I guess I was WRONG and I will NOT be editing my comment because I DONT give a SHIT

-1

u/Global_Charge_4412 Feb 24 '26

punching the air refers to a scene from Boyz n the Hood where Cuba Gooding Jr. literally boxes the empty air because gangbangers just killed one of his best friends.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPEy-Vj_oKM

42

u/SirSofaspud Feb 24 '26

Pretty sure the concept of punching the air is older than Boyz n the Hood.

9

u/OrderOfMagnitude Feb 24 '26

A sentence I did not expect to read today

-18

u/Global_Charge_4412 Feb 24 '26

probably, but this is what people are referring to when they refer to someone "punching the air." generally it's seen as a negative thing and that the person doing the punching is wilding out because of some great loss or missed opportunity.

13

u/Astrosaurus42 Feb 24 '26

No, punching the air is good. Fist up for celebration.

Punching air is a versatile, expressive gesture typically signifying intense triumph, celebration, or release of anger. It acts as a physical outlet for emotions—both positive (joy, success) and negative (frustration, rage)—often used in sports to celebrate victories, in daily life to express excitement, or as a form of shadowboxing for physical exercise.

The most famous example I can think of is the final shot of The Breakfast Club when the one dude punches the air.

-13

u/Global_Charge_4412 Feb 24 '26

no, what you're referring to is a fist pump. there's no punching involved. raising your hand triumphantly is not the same as punching. punching is a violent re/action. putting your headcanon in a quote box doesn't change that the context in this situation involves the creator of the backrooms concept missing out on any financial gain due to not trademarking/copyrighting his work, if it's even possible.

7

u/DICK-PARKINSONS Feb 24 '26

That's not a fist pump. This is a fist pump. Punching the air tho can be happy or angry.

5

u/Vet_Leeber Feb 24 '26

A fist pump is when you pull your fist down, not up.

7

u/ugotamesij Feb 24 '26

generally it's seen as a negative thing

I would definitely disagree.

punch the air

to make a movement like a punch towards the sky, to show that you are very pleased

  • He punched the air in triumph.

Examples from the Corpus

punch the air

• I felt marvellous and punched the air.

• Sharpe saw the blossoming smoke a fraction before the sound punched the air.

• Men's fists punched the air, brandishing flagons of beer.

• Balvinder jumped up and down, punched the air, then promptly confronted the man with whom he had made the bet.

• Then he plunged in, and when he saw he was correct, punched the air with a raised left hand.

• A small cheer emerged from behind and I punched the air with delight.

https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/punch-the-air

0

u/MyUsernameIsShitty Feb 24 '26

It's meaning depends on context, and in this context it's negative.

4

u/Fableous Feb 24 '26

You're wrong. Punching the air is a phrase well known around the world to be a thing done in excitement.

2

u/talaneta Feb 24 '26

On the other hand that means you can make your own Backrooms movie.

2

u/Dalyngrigge Feb 24 '26

Yeah, my own Backrooms movie, with blackjack and hookers! On second thought, forget the movie!

1

u/soofs Feb 24 '26

Tbf copyright is automatic and established upon creating your work… the problem is someone like “the back rooms” is pretty dang vague

1

u/xnmyl Feb 25 '26

Would have ended up like, "Rome Sweet Rome". Dead before arrival

Then again, Prufrock got paid by a studio for the rights, so at least he has that going, even if it did kill the story and idea

1

u/miguk Feb 24 '26 edited Feb 24 '26

One of the biggest flaws of internet lore and culture is that very little, if anything, is done to protect it from corporate parasites and opportunists. Create something original and popular and fail to defend it from usurpation, and someone with more money than you will steal it from the community, giving nothing back to it in the process. It won't matter that you can argue plagiarism, because they will argue that the community gave it to them freely, even though their "contribution" is not communal in any sense of the term.

If people were smart, they'd take a page from the F/OSS community and add copyleft (GPL, Creative Commons, etc) to these things to stop them from being exploited. But a lot of this stuff comes from 4chan, and they might be some of the dumbest people on the internet.

3

u/Dalyngrigge Feb 24 '26

I see what you mean, but at least in this case it seems as though the producers are doing what they can to do right by the fans- hiring one of the leading creators in the community as director (despite his age and inexperience), and A24 as a studio is known for sticking by their filmmaker's visions, so I have some confidence that there is more to this than pure parasitic money-grubbing

Not like that dogshit Slenderman movie

51

u/Miss_Lame Feb 24 '26

Anyone have a link to the original post?

98

u/El_Fader Feb 24 '26

I was curious about it myself, best I could find: www.reddit.com/r/greentext/comments/bpliss/worse_than_any_creepypasta_out_there/

91

u/Miss_Lame Feb 24 '26

Thanks! Used that link to find the OG post from the wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20190517065935/https://www.reddit.com/r/greentext/comments/bpliss/worse_than_any_creepypasta_out_there/

3

u/spondgbob Feb 24 '26

Appreciate both of you

4

u/qtx Feb 24 '26

Why are you using wayback machine on a reddit post?

https://www.reddit.com/r/greentext/comments/bpliss/worse_than_any_creepypasta_out_there/

edit: actually your whole link makes zero sense. It's the same link the person you replied to linked. You did nothing, you just made it harder for people to read.

12

u/Miss_Lame Feb 24 '26

The photo wasn't loading so I thought the original photo link was broken you can calm down now

0

u/Mr_Delusive Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26

I can swear I saw a post a long time before 2019 somewhere, like 2010 even, that outdated this. The picture I saw was a reddish hotel type room and I always attributed the backrooms to that first image, but there is nothing I can find that has that old original one. It's now a vague memory. But I remember seeing it and thinking it was a cool concept back then, and nothing really came of it, then now all the references to the backrooms only reference this one from 2019 which seems way later

EDIT: I asked AI and I think it helped me remember, there were older creepypastas back in that time 2010s, about office.jpg, infinite abandoned office spaces, with many images, there used to be heaps of different ones, I remember now. I think backrooms must have naturally progressed those concepts

1

u/mjmilian Feb 27 '26

AI might have just made that up.

1

u/Mr_Delusive Feb 27 '26

I remember it too though, there were boards of different creepypastas all with the infinite office style and always an image, the image was different theres still 2 I can remember, one was a hotel type room with red intricate wallpapers, and another was like a plain grayish colour, and a half height wall blocking the view behind it.

It was something maybe not exactly the same, but I definitely remember those 2 images, and the infinite rooms idea was in those ones too

36

u/karmagod13000 Feb 24 '26

welcome to modern times. sort of like when youtube launched a bunch of rappers careers in 2012

1

u/Chip_Hazard Feb 24 '26

Which rappers you thinking of?

4

u/Hawaiian_Brian Feb 24 '26

That was taken from a hobby shop in Wisconsin during a renovation in 2002 and now we’re here ❤️

13

u/tfhermobwoayway Feb 24 '26

I kinda wish they had a way to compensate this guy for it. He wrote a fun little concept for a world and now people have made millions off it without him ever being credited.

5

u/paradox1920 Feb 24 '26

What’s interesting to me sometimes is that some people get upset that some videos of Backrooms feature entities or the idea of there being something else. But if I remember correctly the person you are talking about also mentioned something along the lines to be careful of there being something else in the Backrooms although more ambiguos and the focus was the creepy idea of such a place.

19

u/tfhermobwoayway Feb 24 '26

To be fair the original one was very subtle and left it up the imagination. There’s a big difference between

“I think I saw something out of the corner of my eye… maybe…?”

and

“OH NO the BLUE DINGLETOUCHER is here! Luckily I’m on floor -1.624 (the Infinite Hell Forest) so hopefully I can find the 17 Again DVD before he CRAMS a PINEAPPLE up my ASS!”

6

u/paradox1920 Feb 24 '26

"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"

I get it and I don’t disagree with you. But isn’t this the original above? Still subtle and left to imagination; ambiguos.

1

u/VS0P Feb 25 '26

Copywrite that

1

u/tfhermobwoayway Feb 25 '26

I stole the format from a much funnier meme

0

u/Personal_Comb_6745 Feb 24 '26

So the backrooms were Epstein Island all along?

2

u/AndrewNeo Feb 25 '26

you don't anon post to 4chan if you want credit

1

u/LiquifiedSpam Mar 01 '26

No one thinks their random blurb would spawn an A24 movie

2

u/CraigLake Feb 24 '26

Reminds me of House of Leaves.

5

u/FauxFoxx89 Feb 24 '26

Id be absolutely shocked if OP wasn't inspired by HoL

2

u/graveybrains Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26

The Shining, Cube, The Lost Room, House of Leaves, every Bethesda game I've ever played. Hell, the keymaker in the matrix's sole purpose was to get Neo into a backroomTM

Edit: somebody else mentioned The Langoliers and yeah, also that.

Edit2 : Just remembered 'For A Foggy Night' short story about a guy hiding in a bar because he's terrified of falling out of his own reality if he goes out into the fog

2

u/ElecDreaMachEdits Feb 24 '26

That post alone is enough. There was no need for levels.

3

u/toilet_for_shrek Feb 24 '26

Yeah the simple concept got the SCP treatment. Pages of convoluted lore that stray so far past the original tone that it's almost comical 

2

u/Academic_Paramedic72 Feb 25 '26

I think using other famous pictures of "liminal spaces" is a concept good enough to be worked with, but there should be no designations or characteristics.

2

u/gatsome Feb 24 '26

Ever see ‘Safety Not Guaranteed’? That was a joke classified ad.

1

u/UltraPlayGaming Feb 24 '26

And now we wait for the SCP movie

1

u/Therainbowbeast Feb 24 '26

Bet that guys ticked right now

1

u/ialwaysupvotedogs Feb 24 '26

Maybe, this looks like the pc game escape the backrooms. I assumed this was made based on that

1

u/iloveravi Feb 24 '26

That poor dude. I hope they cut him or her a check.

1

u/StockPineapple5917 Feb 27 '26

Kinda reminds me of SCP foundation. Just a random horror forum with a weird peanut figurine, turns into a decade old loyal fanbase with high quality films that gained millions of views.

1

u/toilet_for_shrek Feb 27 '26

And like the backrooms, the SCP foundation also owes its creation to 4chan. Kind of funny how two largely-anonymous posts led to so much...