Backrooms(2026)

Rather than relying on green screens, the production constructed a massive practical labyrinth of yellow hallways and fluorescent-lit rooms. Parsons recalled that when he returned to the set after two weeks of shooting exteriors, it was "the strangest, coolest moment on this project for me," and admitted that some crew members were actually getting lost inside the maze.

Parsons, who taught himself Blender to make the original YouTube shorts, was obsessively protective of the visual tone. He and cinematographer Jeremy Cox conducted 50 separate wallpaper tests to nail the precise shade of yellow that audiences had already imprinted on from his viral videos.

The film is not a reboot or reimagining — it was written to be in-continuity with Parsons's web series, which follows the fictional Async Research Institute's discovery of the Backrooms in the late 1980s. The feature simply expands that same universe with new characters, including a therapist (Renate Reinsve) searching for a missing patient.