Backrooms and – Two indie horror releases—“Backrooms” and “Obsession”—are pulling attention in ways Hollywood usually struggles to replicate: “Backrooms” is set for $85 million this weekend, while “Obsession” opened May 15 and rose to $24 million in its second weekend. Their
By the time the weekend box office numbers settle, you can usually feel what kind of movie it was—predictable, safe, built to behave. This weekend felt different.
“Backrooms” and “Obsession,” both horror films, are drawing audiences in a way that’s hard to ignore. “Backrooms,” described as an experimental head-game creep-out, is set to make $85 million this weekend. The figure is framed as insane in the conversation around it. and the comparison people keep reaching for is “The Blair Witch Project”—only weirder. and with its own momentum.
Then there’s “Obsession,” which opened May 15 with a $17 million weekend and climbed again in its second weekend, reaching $24 million. Another number that comes with a punchline in the debate: insane again, a result that “defies the laws the box-office gravity.”
What makes those numbers land harder is the kind of movies they are. The makers—Kane Parsons for “Backrooms. ” and Curry Barker for “Obsession”—aren’t presented here as craftsmen chasing the expected route. They’re positioned as creators making films that take people to places they’ve never been. and the weekend suggests plenty of viewers are hungry for exactly that.
The swirling talk goes beyond the films themselves, turning to the young directors and the internet followings around them. The argument that follows is simple: YouTube is becoming a new kind of proving ground. treated as the new Sundance. the new MTV. or “the new whatever.” There’s also a claim about aesthetic DNA—“Backrooms” is said to pour out of the structural and atmospheric influence of the web. while “Obsession” is described as less directly tied to that same idea.
But the most important shift in the story isn’t about platforms. It’s about Hollywood’s problem. The success of “Backrooms” and “Obsession” is presented as a direct rebuttal to the industry habit of reducing movie-making to a marketing formula. The push is for a bigger message than “hip filmmakers with devoted web followings sell.”.
The message being insisted on is the old one phrased in a new way: Hollywood needs to think outside the box. That doesn’t mean throwing the box away—tentpoles still rule. It means the box has become an addiction that Hollywood needs to shake.
In the same breath, the article folds in a checklist of this year’s examples: “The Drama,” described as an edgy marital-jitters drama, and “Hoppers,” called an out-there Pixar comedy. From there comes the promise that if you build it, they will come.
So what, exactly, is supposed to be built? More movies ripped out of imagination. Stories that go around forbidden corners. Movies that surprise people instead of treading familiar places.
“Backrooms” is described as one of the most experimental movies ever to turn into a blockbuster. The comparison to David Lynch’s “Eraserhead” is also part of how it’s sold—at times, the “life-as-surreal-nightmare industrial-sound-garden bugginess” is brought up as the feeling it carries.
“Obsession. ” by contrast. is called more conventional. but the pitch is that it still brings something new: a shivery funhouse vision of a romantic relationship that spirals into the drain of mental illness. The story centers on Dan (Michael Johnston). a more-sensitive-than-he-should-be hero who buys a make-a-wish collectible that gets Nikki (Inde Navarrette). the girl of his dreams. to fall in love with him. Once she does. her neediness becomes so compulsive it’s framed as if she’s having a depressive/narcissistic/schizophrenic breakdown.
The movie’s effectiveness, as described here, comes from “real-world terror” lurking inside a fantasy premise—something that taps into actual generational anxiety.
For all the talk about internet followings and youthful filmmakers. there’s another detail that keeps showing up: both films were released by independent companies. “Backrooms” is from A24, and it’s presented as A24’s reigning indie studio’s biggest hit. “Obsession” is from Focus Features, which picked it up for $14 million at last fall’s Toronto Film Festival.
A24 and Focus are described as companies “wired to think independently,” and do. Their success is likened to Miramax’s change to Hollywood in the ’90s—suggesting that when the big players feel threatened by streaming fear or theatrical cynicism. they may underestimate what the audience is still willing to reward.
The piece leans into that fear by imagining a different fate for “Obsession”: if Netflix had bought it at TIFF, the argument goes, the noise around it would be deafening in its silence—because it wouldn’t have the same theatrical conversation.
That leads to a larger claim about A24. After “Marty Supreme,” “The Drama,” and now “Backrooms,” A24 is described as entering its full Miramax era—an era where it has a chance to bend culture and curve theatrical.
There’s also a refusal to get stuck in the usual fight over streaming and whether young people “don’t like movies.” The stance is blunt: movies need to evolve. starting with a return to the “religious belief” in the power of windows. with a jab at delaying the home release—“(If you delay the home release…they will come!).”.
But the heart of the plea is the same as the weekend numbers: return to making movies that people seek out because they want to be surprised. “Backrooms” and “Obsession” are offered as proof that mainstream audiences actually crave something artful—something out of the box.
For now, the weekend data doesn’t just suggest a trend. It suggests a demand. And in the language of the piece, the invitation is collective: for a moment and maybe more, these films should unite everyone in the simplest refusal—“Fuck the box.”
Backrooms Obsession A24 Focus Features horror movies box office streaming debate indie film success internet followings Kane Parsons Curry Barker