A24’s Backrooms is turning one of the internet’s strangest horror ideas into a major box office story, showing how online folklore and YouTube-born scares can move from niche communities into mainstream theaters.
The film made $10.4 million from Thursday previews, according to Variety, setting a new preview record for A24. That early result puts Backrooms in position to become one of the studio’s biggest commercial openings and gives the movie a wider meaning beyond a single weekend box office number.
The success is notable because Backrooms did not begin as a traditional Hollywood franchise. Its roots are in internet horror, liminal-space imagery and short-form online storytelling. The idea became popular through eerie images and videos of endless, empty, yellow-lit rooms that feel both ordinary and deeply wrong.
That visual concept became especially powerful on YouTube, where filmmaker Kane Parsons helped turn the Backrooms idea into a found-footage-style horror series. The Verge describes Backrooms as part of a broader wave of horror filmmakers using YouTube as a launchpad, with Parsons moving from viral online shorts to a feature film for A24.
That shift matters because horror has always been one of the most flexible genres in entertainment. It can turn small budgets, strong atmosphere and memorable concepts into major audience interest. But Backrooms adds a newer element: a built-in digital mythology that many younger viewers already understand.
For audiences who grew up with creepypasta, analog horror, video essays and short-form internet scares, Backrooms is not just another horror movie. It is a familiar online nightmare made physical. That gives the film a cultural advantage that older horror marketing did not always have.
The movie also arrives at a moment when studios are searching for stories that feel original but still come with audience awareness. Traditional franchises can be expensive and overused. Internet-native horror offers a different path. It can feel fresh to general audiences while already having a fan base online.
The key is whether the film can work for both groups. Fans of the original online material may want the movie to preserve the vague, unsettling quality that made the videos popular. New viewers, however, need a story that makes sense without requiring hours of background knowledge.
That balance is one reason Backrooms is an important test case. If the movie succeeds beyond opening weekend, it may encourage studios to look more closely at online horror creators, YouTube series, indie game aesthetics and digital folklore as sources for theatrical films.
The appeal is also strongly visual. The Backrooms concept is built around simple but memorable imagery: empty rooms, artificial lighting, repeating corridors and the feeling of being trapped somewhere that should not exist. Those images work well on social platforms, in trailers and in mobile-first entertainment coverage.
That visual clarity may help explain why the film has been able to break out. A viewer does not need a long explanation to understand the mood. A single hallway can communicate the premise.
The broader trend is already visible. Online horror has influenced games, short films, streaming series and social media storytelling. Backrooms now shows that the same culture can shape theatrical box office, especially when paired with a studio known for distinctive horror and younger audiences.
There is also a generational story here. Parsons is part of a group of creators who learned filmmaking through digital tools, online communities and direct audience feedback rather than the traditional studio system. People reported that he is 20 years old and became the youngest director to helm an A24 film, after first gaining attention with his viral Backrooms videos.
That background makes the film’s early performance even more significant. It suggests that studios may increasingly treat online creators not only as marketing partners, but as directors capable of carrying feature films.
For A24, the strong preview number could also reinforce the value of turning culturally specific horror concepts into wide releases. The studio has built a reputation around distinctive genre films, but Backrooms appears to be reaching a broader commercial scale.
The question now is whether the movie can hold audience interest after the initial online fan rush. Horror films often open strongly and then depend on word of mouth, reviews and social media reaction to stay visible. If Backrooms continues to perform, it could become a new example of how internet culture can drive theatrical demand.
For now, its opening momentum is already clear. Backrooms has taken a strange online fear — the feeling of being lost in an endless artificial space — and turned it into a mainstream entertainment event.
That may be the real story. The future of horror may not only come from novels, comics or old franchises. It may come from the corners of the internet where a single unsettling image can become a world.
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