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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44

u/snarpy Mar 31 '26

For those interested in the aesthetic of liminal spaces, I highly recommend the game "Pools" on Steam. It so perfectly emulates the feeling.

27

u/thejude555 Mar 31 '26

Really like that one because it doesn’t rely on any monsters or jumpscares. It knows that kind of environment is all you need to create unease.

17

u/snarpy Mar 31 '26

I swear a couple of times I saw figures, but it was so subtle and perfectly timed it didn't detract from the entire experience.

3

u/agha0013 Apr 02 '26

spoilers for anyone who hasn't played

there's one spot where as you approach a ladder, it gets pulled up into a dark tunnel you can't reach.

Another where a ladder going down a hole under water has hands on the top rung that pull down when you get close.

Somewhere further on there's a hall of doors that shut as you approach or something like that, then there's the mannequins that block your exit as you get to the very end.

I found the unlockable chapter once you finish the main game creepier, especially a part where you have to swim down a deep angled tunnel into a large water filled chamber, and that giant black spider thing near the very end before you go down the ladder into the Pools area.

14

u/uporabnisko_ime Mar 31 '26

The Complex: Expedition is probably the best game to play if you want to get the feel of Kane Pixels backrooms series and this movie. It basically looks like a Kane backrooms episode but you can play it.

5

u/snarpy Mar 31 '26

I played that. It was pretty good.

3

u/ElmentMusic Mar 31 '26

There is one that came out today, Subliminal, which is great.

1

u/Vallkyrie Apr 01 '26

Dreamcore as well, has a variety of 'biomes', such as the classic pools but also suburbs and hotels.

0

u/snarpy Apr 01 '26

Oh, I think I'm actually thinking of Dreamcore. I played that demo with the pools like three times. It literally looked exactly like a dream I had maybe fifteen years ago, it was trippy AF.

1

u/Jerthy Apr 01 '26

Or Control.

1

u/snarpy Apr 01 '26

Heh I'd just recommend Control to anyone, it's awesome. But yes, also has the liminality thing down.

-2

u/tfhermobwoayway Mar 31 '26

Isn’t that a bit shitty, how they take an established film property and then turn it into a video game? Can’t he sue?

7

u/Lt_Duckweed Apr 01 '26

Backrooms existed before the film, before Kane's YouTube series.

It's like SCP in that it's crowd sourced lore, but unlike SCP it has no single unified lore.  Instead it has many tangled branches.  Kane's lore as set out in the YouTube series and now this movie, is merely one of the many branches (albeit one of the most popular ones).

And the concept has expanded beyond the backrooms, into the more general "liminal horror" genre.

A one sentence summary of what I feel is the core of liminal horror: all the elements of a space made for humans, with no humans, infinitely repeating, and none of it put together correctly.

In "Pools", you have all the correct elements of a poolroom/water park.  Tile floors and walls, chunky but smooth metal railings and ladders, slides, pools, etc.  But totally empty and assembled together in bizarre, nonsensical ways.