Surprise! Backrooms Is Already Releasing An Extended Edition In Theaters
Yet another chance to visit Captain Clark's Ottoman Empire.
It’s only been 7 years since the original picture hit the internet, but it feels like the Backrooms as a concept have been with us forever. A defining addition to the library of new-age internet horror (filed under L for Liminal), the concept built off a foundation of uncanny geographical horror present in works like The Shining or The Blair Witch Project. In just the short time it has existed, the Backrooms have already inspired multiple video games and several web-series, along with a collective meta-narrative online. It’s a testament to the way that the internet has created a new medium of storytelling, wherein a premise isn’t honed by one singular creative voice but is instead built by the masses, who choose which narrative strands to engage with and which ones to ignore.
Undoubtedly the most popular and recognizable Backrooms works come from the YouTube channel Kane Pixels, the alias of 21-year-old experimental filmmaker Kane Parsons. Back in 2022 Parsons used the computer graphics software Blender to create a short film about the concept, which spiraled into a multipart YouTube horror series that eventually and awe-inspiringly became Backrooms, a feature-length horror film released by A24 earlier this year that has already become the studio’s highest-grossing movie ever. Now that Parsons’ first film has become an overnight success and Backrooms has become a mainstream horror phenomenon, it makes perfect sense that A24 is about to send moviegoers back to the maddeningly mundane labyrinth for the second time.
Regardless of the valid criticisms to be made about his debut, it’s remarkable that Parsons took a niche internet phenomenon and turned it into a box office juggernaut.
On June 29th, Variety reported that the horror hit would be getting a theatrical re-release just in time for the 4th of July weekend, humorously titled Backrooms: Everything Must Go Edition. This new version of the film clocks in at two hours and six minutes, and comes with a “theatrically exclusive” post-credits scene as well as additional footage that will add up to about 15 minutes in total. As of right now it’s not known whether or not the re-release will constitute some form of “Director’s Cut” or if the footage will simply be in the form of deleted scenes presented at the end, something the MCU did for the re-release of Avengers: Endgame back in 2019 (although this option probably isn’t likely).
It’s hard to imagine what exactly was cut from the original release that would be worthwhile to add back, but a common point of discussion in regards to Backrooms is just how unsettling and effective the film’s found-footage sequences are. Unlike Parsons’ YouTube series, the feature film weaves brief found-footage setpieces into more traditional cinematic framing — hopefully the re-release includes more of those claustrophobic, terrifying moments of shaky-cam obfuscation and pandemonium as opposed to the movie’s slower-paced character and exposition scenes. There’s no way of knowing right now, but the fact that A24 feels confident enough to bring Backrooms back to theaters is a testament to the impact that a (mostly) original work of contemporary horror has made on general audiences. And it’s all but assured that this kind of confidence in the project means that the recently announced sequel is high up on the company’s list of priorities.
