Backrooms is a new horror film from A24, based on the series of Backrooms short films that director Kane Parsons has been releasing on his YouTube channel since 2022. And the original germ of the story can be traced to a creepy bit of internet folklore. Backrooms is something of a home-grown internet success story; the movie taking in over $70 million in its debut weekend, demolishing its $10 million budget.
Kane Parsons is all of 20 years old, and was just 16 when he started uploading his Backrooms shorts to YouTube. Some people have had a hard time believing that such a young director could make a movie this successful, and there’s been chatter online about whether Backrooms was actually “shadow directed” by a mysterious, older benefactor.
It wasn’t, of course; Parsons has been the director of record for years, and his own cast has shot down the rumors that he had help on set. In fact, Parsons is part of a long line of young directors who could point the way forward for the movies.
Backrooms director is in good company
Bring on the teen takeovers
Hollywood is like any other industry: it has an old guard that can be set in its ways, which can make it difficult for younger talent to break through. But younger directors have long been key to actually getting people interested in cinema at times when interest was flagging. There are lots of great directors who broke through in their younger days
- Sam Raimi was just 21 years old when he made 1981’a Evil Dead, starting a horror franchise that is still going on today.
- John Singleton made his Oscar-nominated debut feature Boyz n the Hood (1991) when he was 22 years old, propelling actors like Cuba Gooding Jr. and Angela Bassett to stardom (Ice Cube was already famous but this got him taken seriously as an actor).
- Robert Rodriguez was 23 years old when he wrote, directed, and edited his micro-budget action film El Mariachi (1992), setting him up for later movies like Alita: Battle Angel and the Spy Kids franchise.
- Kevin Smith was also 23 when he made the low-budget Clerks (1994), which kicked off a long career.
- Orson Welles was 25 years old when he made Citizen Kane (1941), which is often short-listed as one of the best movies of all time and still has people quoting it today.
- Steven Spielberg, whose incoming masterpiece Disclosure Day opens on June 12, was just 26 years old when he directed the action thriller Duel (1971), which had ideas he would rework for his 1975 breakout Jaws.
Some of these directors, like Raimi and Rodriguez, basically financed their first films themselves and forced Hollywood to pay attention to them. Others, like Welles and Singleton, were given studio resources right out of the gate. Kane Parsons did a bit of both, proving himself with his successful YouTube shorts before being given a $10 million budget to make Backrooms. Honestly, the young director he recalls the most might be Orson Welles, who was already known for his stage and radio productions before RKO gave him a pile of money to make Citizen Kane.
Young or not, Kane Parsons has already proven himself
He and directors like him could be a lifeline for Hollywood
That doesn’t mean that Kane Parsons will go on to become a legend like Welles, but it does prove that there’s nothing new about his early rise. Critics should focus less on his age and more on his success, which is all Hollywood cares about. Parsons’ first Backrooms short on YouTube has nearly 80 million views as I write this, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that number goes up now that the movie is a hit. Every subsequent short has millions of views. Obviously people are interested in what Parsons is doing, so why wouldn’t Hollywood want in on that?
In fact, Parsons is part of a new young guard of directors who are revitalizing the industry. Backrooms is screening in theaters alongside Obsession, a horror movie made by the 26-year-old YouTuber Curry Barker. Obsession has a budget of just $1 million, but there are days when it’s outperformed Disney’s $165 million Star Wars blockbuster The Mandalorian and Grogu. This past January, the YouTuber Markiplier (real name Mark Edward Fischbach) released his feature film debut Iron Lung, which made over $50 million on a budget of $3 million.
It’s looking like YouTube may be the preferred new proving ground for upcoming filmmakers. Success is success and this new crop of directors have proven they can be successful, so who cares about their age?
A little bit of history repeating
New people, old story
Hollywood has gone through metamorphoses before. In the 1960s, the studio system collapsed as it endured threats from television as well as a general waning interest in the kinds of movies studios were used to making. So in the 1970s, young filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Mel Brooks, and George Lucas came in and turned things around by doing things differently. The rise of filmmakers like Parsons, Curry, and Fischbach could be the 2020s version of this. And who knows who will blow up next?
It’s in everyone’s best interest to find out. Movie theaters are finally making a comeback after the hard post-COVID years, and these guys are a big part of the reason why. That’s something to encourage, not quibble with.
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And actually, I doubt that anyone seriously disagrees with me here. A lot of the conspiracy theories about Backrooms having a “ghost director” seem to originate with one post on X.com, and while that post has over one thousand likes, the posts pushing back on the idea have way more. People on the internet love to champion a worthy cause, and the Backrooms discourse may be a case of them blowing something out of proportion so they have an excuse to feel self-righteous about it.
It won’t matter very soon. All that will count is the success of Backrooms itself, and the chance Parsons has to build off of it.
- Release Date
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May 27, 2026
- Runtime
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110 minutes
- Director
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Kane Parsons
