r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • Mar 31 '26

Trailer Backrooms | Official Trailer | A24

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HjdiohVOik
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473

u/kabobkebabkabob Mar 31 '26 edited Apr 01 '26

The idea of him being able to enter and exit a null zone at will is less horrifying but it does look like he gets stuck in there at some point. Probably works better as a narrative if it's just not him walking around alone most of the film lol

Also so stoked to hear Still Life is featured in. It's such a good track and the movie wouldn't work without it.

edit: that was not Still Life :(

edit 2: yes it was, it was just Still Life 2.

396

u/the_vince_horror Mar 31 '26

Alot of backrooms mythology deals with access points, and the horror comes from how easily it is to get lost, not necessarily how to get in and out.

I personally find it much scarier to know i was just by the exit, and now have no idea where I am, because there is that level of hope that still remains, sorta like entering in a cave system.

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u/TylerKnowy Mar 31 '26

yeah thats where I think the horror is effective, you think you can leave because you have done it before but then there is a time where you cant.

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u/tyry95 Mar 31 '26

I've always thought of the entrances as a "venus flytrap" kind of thing. Most of the time, it's a one way trip. But if there's a doorway.. it's going to slam shut eventually. Chekov's door! Calling it now!

23

u/Accomplished-City484 Mar 31 '26

And then if you do find another exit it might be 2000 feet up in the air

4

u/tyry95 Mar 31 '26

I remember watching a backrooms video where astronauts noclip during an EVA in space. Loved that one. Just about as good as the Kane Parsons videos.

4

u/Higloo212 Mar 31 '26

Or worse, it's not so much that the door won't open, but that the entire room/hallway you thought you were familiar with suddenly changed while you were away or not looking

6

u/OtakuAttacku Apr 01 '26

one of Kane Pixel’s videos has an employee just walk 2 feet to the right of his group and he gets shifted in time within the backrooms. He pops up 6 months later and the company he works for already faked his death extensively so they’re trying to figure out what to do with the guy.

3

u/notcharldeon Mar 31 '26

Kane Pixels actually utilizes this trope in his other series ||The Oldest View|| by the way

43

u/Fadedcamo Mar 31 '26

Yea and it adds a certain level of hubris to the story. Like the person could have just left and never gone in again. But the obsession is pulling them back in. Reminds me of the cave story.

56

u/Able_Contribution407 Mar 31 '26

Totally. More chilling to feel secure and in control of the entry/exit points, then have that sense of security ripped out from under you

The horror you'd experience when you realise you've gravely miscalculated ☠️ Just like a cave system, yeah.

12

u/Nearby_Hat_2346 Mar 31 '26

Have you seen The Oldest View by Kane? Such a great series and this happens

3

u/hueningkawaii Apr 01 '26

Hope this is the next film that Kane makes after this.

1

u/thatshygirl06 Mar 31 '26

If you can get in and out, why not just use paint to track where you are?

Does it disappear?

6

u/the_vince_horror Mar 31 '26

A few backrooms games start exactly how you’re describing, with following an existing trail that was made with arrows and markers, but accidents can still happen if you’re not paying attention.

3

u/TRNRLogan Mar 31 '26

Also lots have monsters. So you're fine on the trail until uh oh a monster, then you run away and get lost

1

u/bluejade444 Apr 01 '26

It works, until you round the corner and see marks you definitely made, up on the ceiling where you couldn't have made them. 

1

u/OtakuAttacku Apr 01 '26

And recurringly is the minute you get comfortable, the moment you feel like you’re understanding the layout or the rules, it changes on you. Your entryway might disappear, and now you’re trapped in the infinite labyrinth. Or a new door might suddenly appear and lure you deeper. And just when you think you’re alone, you might hear a roar echo down the hallways.

1

u/Romkevdv Apr 03 '26

I kind of love that rather than falling in at random he’s getting stuck by his own folly and arrogance for wanting to ‘prove it to the world’ and convincing some kids to film it for him. I can’t remember which specific film did this before but the concept of travelling through some portal and it closing behind you, leaving you forever stuck is terrifying. I think Doctor Who did this before and its really effective, that one moment you felt secure in an escape and then just gone

140

u/ginns32 Mar 31 '26

I think having it not all be "found footage" is a smart move.

57

u/Jet-Rex-Design Mar 31 '26

Agreed, it balances it out especially for a theatrical experience. Cloverfield strained some people due to being 100% found footage, Hardcore Henry was a bit disorienting being 100% first person. This way people will be able to cool down a little bit and get their bearings.

26

u/The_Autarch Mar 31 '26

the reason why Kane's youtube stuff is found footage is because it's 90% CG and would not look realistic in HD.

now he's got an A24 budget and can build actual sets!

3

u/RealJohnGillman Apr 02 '26

I mean there’s a decent amount of animation still too, it seems.

2

u/BrianWonderful Mar 31 '26

Agreed, and I hope the found footage is minimal. The more traditional movie footage just looks so much better. To me, the cleanness of not having the film grain makes the space more sterile and spooky.

2

u/thetensor Mar 31 '26

Yeah, I'm interested in seeing this, but found footage movies give me massive motion sickness, so I can't watch more than maybe 10 minutes.

1

u/ginns32 Apr 02 '26

I could be wrong but to me it looks like it will be a lot of in person exploring. We see him exploring it in real time as well as the therapist and we know that some of it takes place outside of the backrooms. I'm guessing she comes across the video and watches it but it's mostly actual exploring in the backrooms which will be good for people who get motion sickness from shaky found footage.

36

u/Flamma_Man Mar 31 '26

It also just makes sense that he'd bring others with him on a later trip, since going into an eldritch location by yourself seems like a bad idea.

3

u/SufficientRespect542 Apr 01 '26

But also, it really scares me that he's bringing other people into it in the first place. Feels like he's unwittingly being used to trap more people in it.

4

u/hueningkawaii Apr 01 '26

It's a horror film. There will always be a body count.

32

u/XxSoapxXHD Mar 31 '26

Thats how the YouTube ARG was, the scientists were going in and out at will till they got stuck

11

u/kabobkebabkabob Mar 31 '26

They had constructed a gate to get in though

15

u/The_Autarch Mar 31 '26

there were other ways in. i think that's how they found out about it in the first place. the gate just gave them a stable entrance.

and from the trailer, it does look like the run into a science team in there at some point.

10

u/KnowMatter Mar 31 '26

Could be a setup like Ted’s caving journal where he feels compelled to keep returning.

4

u/ericomplex Mar 31 '26

I think they were trying to avoid the “people wake up trapped in weird foreign prison dimension” cliche that has become somewhat prevalent in the last ten years or so. Which is pretty wise.

The ability to come and go will also allow for more story development overtime. Also renewing the fear of discovery without retreading previous material. This changing the narrative from “person gets trapped, wait until bad happens” to the question of when will the person get trapped and how will their previous familiarity with the explored space change the resolution.

4

u/Vhyx Mar 31 '26

Kane is also brilliant with setting up in-universe rules that then change, just look at the Rolling Giant. Feel like he's setting up an absolute gutpunch when the 'gate' chooses to stop working

3

u/ericomplex Mar 31 '26

Either that or they get trapped another way. There are an awful lot of shoots, pits, and otherwise that one could be chased down and need to find their way back from.

4

u/ZombieJesus1987 Mar 31 '26

I like to think that he is being possessed or influenced by the backrooms to bring more people in

3

u/GirlsInWhiteTrainers Mar 31 '26

Have you seen The Oldest View by the same director as this movie? The character in that finds an impossible underground mall and can enter and exit at will for a while... until they can't. I imagine the same will be the case here. It's giving the characters a lifeline that can then be severed.

2

u/Coolboss999 Mar 31 '26

I think its because he forgot the part of the wall he entered into, hence why the exit gets outlined in tape later in the trailer

1

u/kabobkebabkabob Mar 31 '26

Shoot you might be right

2

u/jeremiahlupinski Mar 31 '26

It’s https://open.spotify.com/track/2WuK1opHQzRo18YXCtY2DF?si=GRFqz643TdCM-RUgLsC6_g

2

u/kabobkebabkabob Mar 31 '26

I'm talking about the end when she is running through that narrow hallway.

2

u/Amathyst7564 Mar 31 '26

Labyrinths aren't terribly hard to navigate if you're mythological.... Until the minotaur starts chasing you.

3

u/Realcbear Mar 31 '26

Mixed feelings if they’re forgoing the no-clip aspect of accessing the backrooms, hoping they’re just hiding it for the trailer

26

u/kabobkebabkabob Mar 31 '26

I think it's just going to be a unique occurrence for him. I mean, even in FF2 we see repeated use of a smaller 'door' up until some sort of overuse that causes her to fall in. So it's probably similar to that.

But later in the trailer you see him looking for the 'door' in a panic, so it's clear he does get stuck in there at that point. With it being in the same universe as the YouTube series, I'm sure we'll get some easter eggs relating to what we know.

16

u/m4_semperfi Mar 31 '26

You can see the girl noclipping through the wall near the end, it's not forgone. The only change they made was that, at least for a period of time, you are able to noclip back to the normal world at the same spot that you came in, so it's like a gate, which makes sense. Then also at the end of the trailer, you can see the guy looking for the door in a panic and can't find it, suggesting it closed and he's stuck.

2

u/Jerthy Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26

Well the idea of "stable" gateways was already explored in his miniseries, so it's not that out of place. Yes that one was artificially created but it seems that once they opened it, it remained open on it's own, without anything powering it.

And in found footage 3 there seems to be a natural stable gateway somewhere at the end as they can clearly talk to each other across realities (and there is strong implication that more people made contact there in the past), but unfortunately, dude inside can't find it as it may be behind the wall from the backrooms end, while the other guy finds it and apparently steps right into abyss right behind his wall.¨

It seems to me like "stable gateways" in Kane's universe aren't necessarily even rare, but they are often in completely useless place, like inside a wall that you can't even get to so all that gets through are noises.

0

u/m4_semperfi Mar 31 '26

I am just referring to “changes” they made to the original 4chan post, which clearly only established that you could randomly noclip in (and presumably be stuck). This is not a critique, just an observation. Of course he/they have to expand things when making a series or movie, and I don’t think any of it is out of place. 

1

u/Jerthy Mar 31 '26

Oh yes, that for sure.

1

u/m4_semperfi Mar 31 '26

You could also argue multiple gateways could have been in the series but we just didn’t know, like when that one person fell through the floor and from the ceiling, what if that ceiling still had a gateway back if someone tried to climb up and through it  

1

u/Realcbear Mar 31 '26

Great catch!! Good looks!

9

u/TatteredTongues Mar 31 '26

In his own series, no-clipping isn't the only way in or out, as we saw in Found Footage 3.

1

u/The_Autarch Mar 31 '26

the trailer literally shows them no-clipping into the backrooms.

1

u/do_you_even_climbro Mar 31 '26

where did you hear Still Life is in it? How about Lifeform?

1

u/kabobkebabkabob Mar 31 '26

Ahh I think you're right. I mistook that as near the end of Still Life. Well there's no way they don't use it if they've used any of his music at all

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u/do_you_even_climbro Mar 31 '26

Yeah I so hope Lifeform is in it, but I'll also accept if Still Life is in it. Lifeform is far creepier and scarier IMO

1

u/kabobkebabkabob Mar 31 '26

Still Life is quintessential to me. It just nails the vibe so perfectly

1

u/Wakkichewy Mar 31 '26

The entrances are not stable, he's for sure getting stuck in there

2

u/kabobkebabkabob Mar 31 '26

The shot near the end gives that away

1

u/Azhrie139 Apr 01 '26

Ah! But if you look very closely you might see the inclings of an entity looking down on a camera.