YouTube whiz kid Kane Parsons turns online IP into buzzed-about movie Backrooms

Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as Clark in the new feature film Backrooms, an analog-horror sci-fi film directed by Kane Parsons, the creator of the viral YouTube series The Backrooms.  Photo by A24 /A24

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At 20 years old, Kane Parsons is the youngest director to helm an A24 film.

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And if the early buzz is any indication, he might just also become one of the American studio’s top earners, as his Vancouver-shot feature film, Backrooms, an adaptation of his viral-hit YouTube series Backrooms (Found Footage), is expected to easily blow by its $10-million budget.

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Set in 1990, Backrooms follows Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a frustrated furniture store owner who is spiralling after separating from his wife. While living in his depressing furniture store, he discovers an otherworldly portal through the wall of the store’s basement. There he finds a vast, creepy space that consists of endless rooms covered in yellow wallpaper with brain-hurting, buzzing fluorescent lights.

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When Clark goes missing, his therapist (Renate Reinsve) is forced to enter the distorted, surreal space to retrieve him.

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In theatres May 29, the Backrooms origin story goes back to 2019 when the then-Petaluma, Calif.-based Parsons, a.k.a. Kane Pixels, took a screenshot of the 4chan creepypasta (a user-generated, horror related legend that is passed around the web). With the help of a free 3D-animation software application, he created The Backrooms (Found Footage) series. To date, that series has close to 80 million views.

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“I think that often, it kind of is connecting with the experience of reflecting on a memory from childhood, which exists in isolation,” said Parsons, who has described Backrooms as a manifestation of foggy memories that resemble old family photographs. “It’s a fragment, basically.”

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Academy Award-nominated actor Chiwetel Ejiofor stars in the new Vancouver-shot feature film Backrooms. The horror sci-fi movie is directed by Kane Parsons, creator of the viral YouTube series The Backrooms (Found Footage). Photo by A24 /A24

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Once his YouTube work gained traction, Hollywood came calling. And Parsons, a talented self-taught VFX artist, said he received “tons of emails” from companies and people he had never heard of.

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“I really was just approaching that with extreme caution, because I loved this project, and I had grown up seeing suits come in and take a chainsaw to so many IPs that I had grown up being a fan of,” said Parsons, who has called Vancouver home since shooting Backrooms here last summer.

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“I was, OK, this is a scenario where I’m going to assume that yes, it’s great. Everyone’s saying with dollar signs in their eyes this can be something big.”

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Backrooms director Kane Parsons helmed the Vancouver-shot feature film at age 20. The young American director, who is calling Vancouver home these days, says he was helped greatly by a Vancouver crew he describes as being “a well-oiled machine.” Photo by LISA O'CONNOR /AFP via Getty Images

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But Parsons is wise beyond his years and recognized that talk is cheap, and agreeing to something too quickly could, in the end, cost him a lot.

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“I bet this is going to fall apart,” Parsons said about conversations with those interested in adapting his IP. “It won’t last; this will be over. And if I give away anything, then I am left with nothing, and I need to just make sure that we don’t break it if it’s working perfectly fine.”

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Not to get too deep into the Hollywood production weeds, A24 (Marty Supreme, Everything Everywhere All at Once) put Parsons, who co-wrote the screenplay with Will Soodik, together with Vancouver producer Chris Ferguson of Phobos, a production company created by him and horror filmmaker extraordinaire Osgood Perkins.

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“He’s wildly intelligent and thoughtful,” said Ferguson about Parsons, who turns 21 in June.

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While Parsons isn’t one to dwell on his age, Ferguson said, “it’s a big thing.”

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“I came into this movie knowing how young he was, but I met him, and clearly he was more intelligent and sophisticated than many directors twice his age, and many people with many more films under their belt. So, I quickly got past that,” said Ferguson, who also heads up Vancouver’s Oddfellows Pictures.