The Viral Teen-Made Nightmare Headed to A24 Theaters — Where to Watch the Original Backrooms Now

A24's 'Backrooms' is finally in theaters, which means two things: 1) people are about to argue about liminal spaces again, and 2) a whole lot of you are going to want the original recipe. Good news — the blueprint lives on YouTube, it still slaps, and it explains exactly how a teenager ended up directing a studio horror movie at 20.

So where do you actually watch the original 'Backrooms'?

Head to Kane Parsons' YouTube channel, Kane Pixels. The entire web series — over 20 interconnected shorts — is free there. Watch them in release order. Trust me on this one; the story quietly builds on itself and you feel the whole mythology snap into place if you follow the breadcrumb trail the way it was dropped.

Style-wise, this is analog/found-footage dread, not cheap startle shots. Think humming fluorescents, stretched office carpet, yellowed drywall, geometry that should not exist, and your brain insisting something is just out of frame. It is somehow both bare-bones and wildly convincing.

How a teen turned a creepypasta into an A24 movie

Kane Parsons — you know him online as Kane Pixels — took the viral Backrooms creepypasta and, in 2022, spun it into a legit analog-horror series. The hook he added: a fictional lab called the Async Research Institute poking holes in reality and accidentally mapping (and unleashing) the Backrooms. That framing gives the shorts a slow, science-meets-nightmare escalation that is way more satisfying than it has any right to be.

The shorts blew up for a reason: they mix psychological horror with just enough sci-fi and shockingly polished VFX and sound design. Hollywood noticed. A24 turned it into a feature, and yes, this is Parsons' feature directorial debut — at 20. That's not normal. That's talent plus timing.

'Thats a wrap on BACKROOMS.'

— A24, April 24, 2026

They're even flexing with specialty rollouts:

'Backrooms in 5DX'

— A24, May 29, 2026

If you want to dive in fast

• Start here: Kane Pixels on YouTube. It's the whole thing, free.
• How much: 20+ shorts that connect into one evolving timeline. Set aside an evening.
• Watch order: Release order. The story and the world-building ramp that way.
• What you’re getting: Grainy, VHS-adjacent found footage; empty corporate hallways; warped architecture; an ever-present 'did you see that?' feeling; minimal jump scares, maximum atmosphere.
• The lore spine: The Async Research Institute and its risky experiments with the Backrooms dimension. That's the backbone the movie riffs on.
• Timeline check: Web series launched in 2022; A24 announced the feature with Parsons directing; production wrapped April 24, 2026; now in theaters, with 5DX options if you like your walls to shake while the lights buzz.
• Industry chatter you might have seen: Mark Duplass publicly pushed back on rumors that Parsons was ghost- directed, while Chiwetel Ejiofor has been crediting Parsons himself as the engine behind the whole thing. Meanwhile, YouTube is busy touting massive creator payouts (the latest brag: $100 billion), which makes the pipeline from channel to cinema feel a lot less hypothetical. Box office projections for 'Backrooms' suggest this one could be a legit mainstream crossover.

Bottom line: if the movie worked for you, the YouTube series is the pure hit — the unnerving, fluorescent-lit seed that grew into the theater thing you just watched. And if you found the film a little opaque, the shorts are the cleanest way to decode the rules of this world without killing the mystery. Start at Kane Pixels, watch in order, and let the dread do its job.