The Backrooms Review: Kane Parsons Turns a Meme Into Certified Fresh Horror
★★★★☆ 4/5
The year's smartest wide-release horror — now on Prime Video and Apple TV+ after a PVOD run that proved the Backrooms myth has theatrical legs.
Should you watch The Backrooms?
If you want 2026 horror that respects your intelligence, yes — Parsons’ debut cleared 87% critics and 90% audiences on release. The Backrooms is the rare internet-born myth that survives contact with a $20 ticket: Ejiofor’s search-and-rescue lead gives the yellow corridors emotional gravity, and Renate Reinsve (The Worst Person in the World) matches him beat for beat in grief.
What is the film actually about?
A family disappears through an ordinary door; the rescue becomes an existential tour of spaces that should not exist. Kane Parsons — who built a massive YouTube following on Backrooms short films — directs with A24 patience: long hallways, fluorescent hum, institutional cruelty. Mark Duplass and Finn Bennett fill out a ensemble that treats the meme as metaphor for bureaucratic abandonment. Metacritic’s 76 Metascore and Letterboxd 3.7 are honest middleweights for a film this concept-forward.
How it compares in genre year
Stack it against January’s Bone Temple on /compare/backrooms-2026/vs/28-years-later-the-bone-temple/ — winter myth versus summer liminal. Both sit on my Best of 2026 staff rationale as proof horror owns multiple lanes in 2026. For sci-fi relief, Kaiser Khan’s Project Hail Mary review covers the year’s optimistic counterprogramming.
Streaming verdict
Post-theatrical PVOD landed on Prime Video and Apple TV+ — sensible homes for a film about endless interior spaces. At 110 minutes, The Backrooms does not overstay its premise; it converts curiosity into dread, then into something like sorrow. Not flawless, but the studio horror movie 2026 needed after a spring of franchise noise.