A24’s Latest Horror: From Creepypasta to the Big Screen
Renowned for redefining independent cinema, A24 has repeatedly struck gold in horror with fresh concepts and unconventional creatives. Their upcoming release, Backrooms, is set to push those boundaries again, tapping straight into the pulse of internet-born mythology and the next wave of filmmaking talent. The enigmatic allure of the Backrooms first gripped the web as a viral 4chan creepypasta, describing a sterile, endless maze of fluorescent-lit rooms disconnected from reality. Over time, this idea grew into a labyrinthine mythos, home to hostile entities and existential dread, capturing the imaginations of millions online.
YouTube Sensation Kane Parsons Leads the Way
Stepping behind the camera for Backrooms is Kane Parsons—better known online as Kane Pixels. At only 20 years old, Parsons embodies the modern director: raised on digital culture, self-taught in VFX, and wildly adept at viral storytelling. His 2022 short, The Backrooms (Found Footage), became a YouTube phenomenon, birthing an entire web series and raising haunting analog horror to a new standard. This success was the catalyst for Parsons’ leap to feature filmmaking with A24, where he’ll wield a multi-million dollar budget, work with esteemed actors like Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve, and bring the Backrooms to cinemas worldwide.
From Web Shorts to Hollywood: The New Horror Pipeline
Parsons is not alone among genre disruptors who cut their teeth on the internet. Directors such as Fede Álvarez, who revitalized the Evil Dead and Alien franchises, started his career with viral YouTube shorts. The Philippou brothers made their mark with the raw, visceral Talk to Me, and Markiplier turned his gaming celebrity into Iron Lung, a self-financed indie horror success.
This trend isn’t accidental. The relative affordability of horror filmmaking lowers the barriers for creators, allowing new voices to experiment with disturbing concepts and original narratives—often outside traditional studio systems. This influx of talent from platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, and social media has flooded modern horror with diversity and creative risk that bigger-budget genres shy away from.
Why Internet Directors Are Revolutionizing Horror
There’s a reason horror fans are gravitating toward these YouTube-bred directors. The genre thrives on innovation, and established franchises can often feel formulaic. In contrast, web-born filmmakers channel their personal experiences with digital folklore, urban legends, and analog horror aesthetics into truly fresh, unsettling visions. Kane Parsons’ Backrooms stands as a prime example — translating a labyrinth of memes, message boards, and collective anxieties into something deeply cinematic and unnervingly immersive.
Upcoming talents like Curry Barker (Obsession), Adrian Chiarella (Leviticus), and Ian Tuason (Undertone) underscore the energy of this movement. Their rapid ascent from online shorts to buzzed-about features highlights how horror serves both as a proving ground and launchpad for the new auteurs of digital culture.
Backrooms and the Future of Horror
Anticipation for Backrooms is sky-high, not just because it’s an A24 project, but because it’s the realization of an internet legend through the lens of a digital native. The cast is stacked, the lore is bottomless, and the internet-born creepiness promises an experience as surreal and boundary-pushing as anything A24 has yet released. As studio and independent horror continue to intertwine with the web’s grassroots insanity, audiences hungry for new nightmares will find no shortage of fresh terrors just beyond the threshold of the Backrooms.
