Last Updated on June 3, 2026 by Angel Melanson
Director Kane Parsons digitally designed and created the entire Backrooms set in Blender before it was built as a massive practical set for his A24 feature. The 21-year-old filmmaker has been digitally creating Backrooms environments for the last four years, but this was the first time his creations were brought to life in a tangible form, allowing him to step inside his work.
“It was incredibly surreal. I mean, it wasn't an immediate moment where it happened, but it was, like you said, it was a lot of going back and forth with these files of modeling the space and becoming very, very familiar with the space where you could sort of navigate it with my eyes closed. In some of the scenes, we were sort of sculpting the environment,” Parsons shared.
He began sharing his unsettling short films on Youtube before becoming A24’s youngest director, giving him the opportunity to physically bring to life the world he’d been building for so long. Parsons worked with DP Jeremy Cox, “showing him the ropes in Blender” which allowed them to tweak the environment as they went, “to emphasize those visual moments. So the set is kind of a reflection of the cinematography as well. They're all kind of talking to each other ahead of actually building it. But while we were doing all that, it was like the bones were going up. It was slowly getting built piece by piece over the course of a couple months. By the time we were done shooting all the outside world stuff, we came in there and it was done.
“It was like stepping into… With no exaggeration, my eyes felt… There was no barrier of disassociation where it felt like it wasn't the place that I've been dealing with online for all these years. It was incredibly bizarre. And of course knowing it like such a familiar place already is a strange thing. I don't think the human brain is usually keen on experiencing something like that. It's weird, being familiar with a place that doesn't exist and then it does.”
After spending months in the Backrooms, stars Renate Reinsve and Chiwetel Ejiofor have stepped back into the uncanny liminal space (in a sense) for this interview. The walls are a drab, soulless yellow beige, and the lighting is an unsettling yellow that somehow lacks all warmth. Reinsve shared that during shooting, “I never felt at ease, then I came back here doing press, and it was so nice seeing you guys again. It actually feels nice now.”
“Oh, okay. So you're warming up to it.” Parsons joked.
“I'm warming up to it, but only because of nostalgia.” Reinsve clarified.
“That's how it gets you!” Parsons warned.
“I wouldn't stay here alone,” Reinsve laughed. “I wouldn't sit here if all of you left and enjoy it.”
Reinsve and Ejiofor act as the audience’s sort of stewards into the Backrooms. For anyone who isn't already familiar with Parsons’ work or the Backrooms as a concept, that's okay, because the audience is essentially following the characters to experience the Backrooms together. In past interviews, Parsons has noted that both of his stars brought a certain curiosity to the project that he found appealing.
“I didn't know anything about the Backrooms at the beginning of this process,” Ejiofor admitted. “I knew a little bit about liminal spaces or I'd heard a bit about liminal spaces, and then received all the information about the script, and then got introduced to Kane's work. My first impression really was that it was itching at something that was… and I think this is what has been the experience of a lot of people… is that it sort of talks to something that has always kind of been there, but you haven't been able to fully articulate that. Just that idea that's just out of reach of why these spaces are so kind of unsettling, and then to really dive in there and explore it. It just felt like this incredibly rich, unique world and sort of pocket of the world that could be expanded and exploded in the way that it is.
“In a sense, for Clark's journey within it, it's a sort of similar thing as he kind of starts to understand it and then harmonizes with his own chaotic psychology with what he needs from the Backrooms and potentially what the Backrooms needs from him. There's this symbiotic relationship, which is hard to articulate, but in a cinematic way, you feel that it makes cinematic sense in a way. It just makes artistic sense of these characters and this space.”
Co-star Renate Reinsve also had a curiosity about the Backrooms as a phenomenon. “I was very curious about why it became so big, what drew people in. Seeing that footage and those films, I felt very alone because that was the feeling that I got in itself,” Reinsve explained.
“But also, if my experience was the same as anyone else, because it's a space in between, you can't say what it is. It confronts you with something about yourself that you're not sure if that's everyone else's experience watching this. I was just intrigued by how powerful that image was for me watching it. That was my way in. Also, having that curiosity the whole way through doing this movie, of course, the character and the emotional journey of her, it's kind of the actor's job. But also being respectful towards the fan base and the world that Kane built, being in that very particular world and having the balance between what is my responsibility here as an actor and the emotions and then actually being just curious about the world itself and what I can contribute in that sense.”
Backrooms is in theaters May 29.
