{"id":78,"date":"2026-05-27T13:42:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T13:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=78"},"modified":"2026-05-27T13:42:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T13:42:20","slug":"the-new-auteur-of-the-hallucinated-hellscape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=78","title":{"rendered":"The New Auteur of the Hallucinated Hellscape"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

In 2019, a mysterious post took off on 4chan, that ever-churning morass of anonymous commentary and internet peculiarities. In response to a yellowed picture of an empty, carpeted room (actually in a vacant HobbyTown store in Oshkosh, Wisconsin), a user wrote, \u201cIf you\u2019re not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you\u2019ll end up in the Backrooms.\u201d To \u201cnoclip\u201d is to walk through solid surfaces in a video game, and the idea of blipping out of reality and into some odd, mundane parallel universe sparked instant intrigue\u2014including for one 13-year-old named Kane Parsons.<\/p>\n

Read more Why Iran\u2019s Leaders Think They\u2019ve Won<\/a><\/p>\n

Parsons was already deeply enmeshed in imagining, and visualizing, strange new worlds online. \u201cIt\u2019s nothing,\u201d Parsons told me recently, speaking of what drew him to the empty place shown in that particular viral photo. \u201cBut it\u2019s also kind of giving us everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within seven years, he would expand the simple notion of \u201cthe Backrooms\u201d into a complex saga. He developed the concept into a string of YouTube videos, which have attracted hundreds of millions of views since he began uploading them in 2022. Now he has adapted the endeavor, which he began for fun in high school, into something much bigger: a feature film, coming to theaters before his 21st birthday.<\/p>\n

Parsons, who grew up in the Northern California countryside of Sonoma County, was given a hand-me-down laptop before he started middle school, and the internet quickly became what he describes as a third parent. (\u201cThat sounds really bad, but, you know,\u201d he added ruefully.) He was inspired to create not by movies or television, but by YouTube, where he was drawn to DIY visual-effects demos; he was astounded that seemingly anyone could teach themselves how to make inventive videos using easily accessible software. \u201cWhen I was in school, the only thing I would think about all day was a random little explosion effect I wanted to achieve,\u201d he said. His eventual goal was to \u201cmake iPhone videos of things that didn\u2019t actually happen, and have a fictional story that doesn\u2019t describe itself as fictional.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toying with the space between real and false memories is the artistic juice of projects such as Backrooms<\/em>. Born from internet folk tales known as \u201ccreepypastas,\u201d these stories tend to be user-generated and build upon themselves, as amateur creators contribute to a backstory for one strange image. The notorious \u201cSlenderman\u201d myth\u2014about a mysterious, tall monster who lurks in the background of photos\u2014originated on a popular message board in 2009, leading to a found-footage-style YouTube show, feature films, and a real-life moral panic. The Syfy-channel TV show Channel Zero<\/em> uses some of the best known of these fables as fodder for serialized storytelling. Parsons\u2019s Backrooms <\/em>is perhaps the most high-profile entry yet in the creepypasta canon; it\u2019s an A24 movie starring highly regarded, Oscar-nominated actors (Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve) and it is receiving a wide release in late May, a peak time of year for moviegoing. It\u2019s already predicted to make back more than double its almost $10 million budget.<\/p>\n

Backrooms<\/em> follows Clark (played by Ejiofor), who owns a cavernous furniture store that has fallen on hard financial times. He stumbles across a portal to another dimension in the basement, filled with empty hallways and harsh fluorescent lighting; furniture and decorations are embedded in the walls and floors; bizarre, threatening creatures roam freely. His therapist, Mary Kline (Reinsve), is eventually drawn into the space too, as are his hapless store employees. Much of the film\u2019s success, however, derives not from the twists and turns of plot but from simply situating the viewer in the disquieting vibe of this bizarre place.<\/p>\n

The movie\u2019s story requires zero initiation for new viewers, but it has deep ties to the narrative that Parsons built out with his YouTube shorts, including a subplot about research scientists; A24 seems hopeful about tapping those young online viewers to create a sleeper summer hit.<\/em> Backrooms<\/em> is far less visceral, however, than many of the studio\u2019s past horror-movie success stories, such as the director Ari Aster\u2019s haunting Hereditary <\/em>and Midsommar<\/em>. Parsons\u2019s film is headier; he\u2019s more comfortable letting the viewer tingle with fear as they watch characters get lost in the hallways of an inexplicable maze\u2014using, at times, terrifying footage that comes from the first-person perspective of a shaky camcorder.<\/p>\n

In conversation, Parsons comes off as serious and thoughtful; this is perhaps unsurprising, given that, as irrational as Hollywood can be, nobody\u2019s going to hand millions of dollars to any 20-year-old just because he or she has a lot of YouTube subscribers. Parsons seems less like a plucky boy wonder than a committed technician, someone who has ground out a skill set using tools that are still relatively new: the ability to conjure realistic environments using only your home computer. As he taught himself how to use free, open-source 3-D-animation software, he tried imagining proper stories for the graphics he was creating.<\/p>\n

Read more The Pope Is Now the World\u2019s Most Famous Humanist<\/a><\/p>\n

His work first gained traction on YouTube in 2021, when he was posting videos inspired by the anime series Attack on Titan<\/em>. Parsons also found viral fame with animations inspired by the video game Portal<\/em>, which features an immersive and beautifully designed domain that is almost a sleeker version of Backrooms<\/em>\u2019 setting; it mostly unfolds in a sequence of austere laboratories from which there\u2019s seemingly no exit. As a teen, Parsons spent much of his time on his computer, both because of the coronavirus pandemic and because he had arthritis that made walking around difficult (he said he\u2019s now on medication for the condition, which helped make the film production doable). Working at a standing desk, he started tinkering with the look and feel of what\u2019s known as liminal horror\u2014the expansive genre suggested by that one 4chan post that has since filtered into the mainstream.<\/p>\n

Liminal horror, although hard to define, blends the surreal and the prosaic, conceiving of spaces that look familiar in their blandness but have something indefinably \u201coff\u201d about them. \u201cI latched on to it in the same way that most people did,\u201d Parsons said of the original post and the work it has inspired. (Examples include the TV show Severance<\/em>, much of which is set in a purgatory-like workplace, and the video game turned film Exit 8<\/em>, about a subway station whose layout subtly changes with every turn.) \u201cThat feeling of walking through a misremembered space from a dream, like your home, but it\u2019s not your own home, because your brain is synthesizing information weirdly.\u201d He compared the concept to wandering through \u201ca Walmart, but your brain is saying it\u2019s your childhood home.\u201d<\/p>\n

The aesthetic feels inextricably tied to the late 1990s and early 2000s\u2014harshly lit office buildings with drop ceilings, vacant malls, the kinds of blank rooms tucked away in a complex that would host a kid\u2019s birthday party in the suburbs. That specific time period is key for Parsons, as are its aesthetic markers: \u201cfamily media from our childhoods,\u201d such as \u201cthe color of digicam photos, the white balance being off, general graininess.\u201d The overall effect is, he mentioned, \u201ca feeling of found media.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liminal horror evokes \u201ca past that no longer exists,\u201d Parsons explained. \u201cThese things no one talks about anymore, abandoned in the past, decaying or rotting away back there.\u201d The genre also, somewhat accidentally, coincided with the rise of generative-AI art. Image-creation models such as DALL-E started to gain a public foothold in 2021, summoning initially rudimentary pictures from simple text prompts; something is always \u201coff\u201d about them too, no matter how hard the technology works to imitate human creativity. \u201cAt the time, there was a lot of artistic intrigue for me from earlier generative-AI systems, when it was just a completely hallucinated hellscape,\u201d Parsons said, referring to his own experience with text-to-image models.<\/p>\n

But the movie he\u2019s made is not some anti-AI commentary, he stresses; it\u2019s speaking to the same feeling of disconnection from reality that AI has prompted. Both the endless sweep of the Backrooms and the limitless field of AI can represent \u201cthis big vomit pile of all the information we spit out as a species,\u201d as Parsons put it\u2014composed of all the memories a person can conjure and fantasies they can express. In the film, the protagonists become wanderers in a landscape that seems to exist on its own space-time continuum, which appears to pull from the collective unconsciousness of everyone who explores it; the Backrooms somehow will their half-remembered dreams into being. The result is a grotesque, open-ended manifestation of its travelers\u2019 imaginations.<\/p>\n

That sense of discomfort is the real horror of Backrooms<\/em>, and why its curious atmosphere feels like a fresh take on ambient-inspired scares. It also might explain the original photo\u2019s allure: The internet makes it possible to bring the most ludicrous thought to life, to an almost overwhelming extent. Becoming trapped in a generic, seemingly empty world offers the opposite experience\u2014frightening and yet, at the same time, maybe strangely appealing.<\/p>\n

Read more A Mystery About Diabetes in Pregnancy<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With <em>Backrooms<\/em>, Kane Parsons brings the half-remembered dreams of the internet\u2019s collective consciousness to light.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":77,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film"],"yoast_head":"\nThe New Auteur of the Hallucinated Hellscape - Commercial Relocation Pros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=78\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The New Auteur of the Hallucinated Hellscape - Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"With <em>Backrooms<\/em>, Kane Parsons brings the half-remembered dreams of the internet\u2019s collective consciousness to light.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=78\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-05-27T13:42:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=78#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=78\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a\"},\"headline\":\"The New Auteur of the Hallucinated Hellscape\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-27T13:42:20+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=78\"},\"wordCount\":1545,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=78#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/4c8eaa205dae1dca4236037d8d81b79d.avif\",\"articleSection\":[\"Film\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=78#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=78\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=78\",\"name\":\"The New Auteur of the Hallucinated Hellscape - Commercial Relocation Pros\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=78#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=78#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/4c8eaa205dae1dca4236037d8d81b79d.avif\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-27T13:42:20+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=78#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=78\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=78#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/4c8eaa205dae1dca4236037d8d81b79d.avif\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/4c8eaa205dae1dca4236037d8d81b79d.avif\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":625},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=78#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The New Auteur of the Hallucinated Hellscape\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/\",\"name\":\"Commercial Relocation Pros\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a\",\"name\":\"admin\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"admin\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?author=1\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The New Auteur of the Hallucinated Hellscape - Commercial Relocation Pros","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=78","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The New Auteur of the Hallucinated Hellscape - Commercial Relocation Pros","og_description":"With <em>Backrooms<\/em>, Kane Parsons brings the half-remembered dreams of the internet\u2019s collective consciousness to light.","og_url":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=78","og_site_name":"Commercial Relocation Pros","article_published_time":"2026-05-27T13:42:20+00:00","author":"admin","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"admin","Est. reading time":"8 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=78#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=78"},"author":{"name":"admin","@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/#\/schema\/person\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a"},"headline":"The New Auteur of the Hallucinated Hellscape","datePublished":"2026-05-27T13:42:20+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=78"},"wordCount":1545,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=78#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4c8eaa205dae1dca4236037d8d81b79d.avif","articleSection":["Film"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=78#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=78","url":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=78","name":"The New Auteur of the Hallucinated Hellscape - Commercial Relocation Pros","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=78#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=78#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4c8eaa205dae1dca4236037d8d81b79d.avif","datePublished":"2026-05-27T13:42:20+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/#\/schema\/person\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=78#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=78"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=78#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4c8eaa205dae1dca4236037d8d81b79d.avif","contentUrl":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4c8eaa205dae1dca4236037d8d81b79d.avif","width":1200,"height":625},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=78#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The New Auteur of the Hallucinated Hellscape"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/","name":"Commercial Relocation Pros","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/#\/schema\/person\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a","name":"admin","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"admin"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com"],"url":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?author=1"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/77"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}