B Movies Blog

Hello, Movie Mavens! Welcome back to the B Movies Blog. Today, we’re popping Kane Pixel’s The Backrooms into the ol’ VCR. 

Okay, I know they say children are the future, but I think they really might hold the key to the future of horror. Alex Kister’s Mandela Catalogue and Kane Pixel’s The Backrooms both being shining examples. 

Kane’s series is based on a 4chan post (I know, I know) from years ago that described The Backrooms as a liminal space with yellow walls and absolutely heinous fluorescent lighting (I can only think of the HD scene from 30 Rock). The Backrooms are devoid of human life but do contain, um, entities that may or may not have once been human. Here’s the original comment that started it all, with the photo that is considered to be lost media: 

“If you’re not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you’ll end up in the Backrooms, where it’s nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in[.] 

God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you[.]” 

I would love to meet the person who said, “Oh, honey, I’m so glad we decided on piss yellow for the walls!” 

Kane’s series takes this idea and runs, nay, sprints with it. Sitting at 49 MILLION views, the first video entitled “The Backrooms (Found Footage)” follows an amateur skateboarder as he noclips into the Backrooms in the 90s. It establishes Kane’s lore, and more impressively, he made this in his early teens (and it’s better than some horror movies I’ve seen that were made by a gaggle of adults). 

Throughout his series, we’re introduced to Async Industries, who seem to have brought the Backrooms into the forefront to solve overpopulation, among other issues. I know. It’s hard to believe that our country would rather create housing within a liminal space than, idk, give us universal health care, provide sustainable resources for the unhoused, etc… But I digress. 

As Kane’s series unfolds, we learn the ins and outs of the Backrooms, including more information about Async, more information about what happens within the Backrooms, and the unpleasant entities walking within its walls. It’s badass. 

POV: You have to go to the bathroom in the back of a Macy’s in the mall in 1998. 

Not only is the series ongoing, but Kane is currently developing a movie adaptation with A24. Yes, that A24. The good news is, Kane addresses the worries surrounding the film in his episode of Anthony Padilla’s I Spent A Day With series, and stated that A24 is giving him a lot of creative control, so we should be pleased. 

Kane Pixels’s series is another reminder to not discredit young creators. When I was a teenager, I spent my time finding the perfect song for my Myspace page. Kane has over two million YouTube subscribers and is working with freakin’ A24 to adapt his series. Neither one of us spent our adolescence incorrectly, but y’know, one of us is making a movie and the other one of us listened to their copy of A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out until it skipped. 

I can’t wait to see The Backrooms up on the big screen. But, I’ll still be looking around the theater to make sure I’m not the only one in it.

OK Go has the best music videos.