Kane Parsons skipped college to make Backrooms with A24

Kane Parsons’ leap from YouTube to A24 came fast—so fast he chose filmmaking over college after “Backrooms” began to take off. With the film opening in theaters on Friday, May 29, Parsons says he didn’t see his viral videos as a pitch for Hollywood, but an int

Kane Parsons has been living in two worlds for years, but one decision made the overlap impossible to ignore. With the release of “Backrooms” this weekend, the YouTuber-turned-filmmaker is stepping into theaters on A24’s terms—before he can legally drink.

For Parsons, the path to a major theatrical film didn’t start as a master plan. A24 tapped him to adapt his viral YouTube series of the same name when he was just 17 years old. The series itself was based on a viral creepypasta about liminal spaces. and Parsons was later mentored by James Wan and Osgood Perkins as he worked to fit an open-source online IP into the confines of a sprawling Hollywood production.

What resulted—“Backrooms,” starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve—lands at the intersection of online liminal horror and Hollywood polish. Parsons’ film leans into spectacle without losing the DIY mystery that made his original videos feel like they were built one frame at a time.

There’s an easy version of his story that gets repeated: a filmmaker builds an audience online before Hollywood can catch up. then walks in when the door opens. Parsons doesn’t deny that the internet gave him momentum. He pushes back on the idea that his videos were simply a proof of concept meant to win gatekeepers.

“Backrooms” is, in his telling, the work of someone who has been online for most of his life—someone who grew up watching YouTube videos and isn’t interested in abandoning that craft even after breaking into Hollywood.

“I’ve been a very online person most of my life,” Parsons said during a recent interview with IndieWire. “I was born the same year as YouTube. so I didn’t get proper internet access until maybe eight or nine. but even then. it was a pretty consistent ramp into watching a lot of independent short films on YouTube. a lot of YouTubers who would leverage VFX. I started getting into VFX-driven channels that would help me realize it’s accessible and something that I could go do. I started with the resources I had. like a laptop. I would pirate VFX software and stuff when I was 11 or so and started learning After Effects.”.

Parsons got his start by making “Attack on Titan” animations. and the moment that really set “Backrooms” in motion came after he saw the original 2019 “Backrooms” 4Chan thread. The thread depicted eerie basements filled with glaring yellow light and floor plans that never seemed to end. Parsons said he didn’t come up with the images. but he latched onto them for what they captured—the unsettling feeling of liminal spaces in a single image.

He took it from there. He created a series of YouTube videos that introduced their own “Backrooms” mythology. That eventually led to Hollywood, but Parsons insists his intention was much smaller at first.

“I feel like I very much went into making the first short and that first little section of the YouTube series where I had no interaction with the industry ever. ” he said. “I had no perspective on it. I had no immediate plan to make a short film that would propel me to anything. “That was not the intention.”.

Still, the videos did something he couldn’t control. When Hollywood started calling, he felt he finally had a reason to delay decisions about college.

“Putting it out for the first time and experiencing that was very much throwing a wrench. but I think it was a welcome wrench in what I was going through at the time. ” he said. “Because it was junior year in high school. Like a lot of people. I was going through the very normal experience of just trying to figure out what the fuck I’m going to do with the next two years and what college is going to be and what that’s going to look like. I was looking at these options into the film industry by way of academia through school. it felt so bogged down with all these things that didn’t feel practical. And they work for plenty of people, but they felt very at odds with the way that I operated. And so, I was pretty bummed out about that.”.

The shift didn’t happen because one offer arrived—Parsons received plenty of inquiries while he was still applying to colleges during his senior year of high school. But once A24 came on board, he made the call to forgo higher education and focus on making his movie.

“It very much felt like, boom, suddenly there’s a new avenue that is still risky. It’s not stable at all. And I was assuming this will come and this will go, this will be over quickly. This is just what happens. and this is neat. but I’m going to try not to get too caught up in it because I see that happen to people all the time. and it usually turns into nothing. ” he said. “I was cautious of that. And I was still applying to colleges and whatnot. And it wasn’t until we were actually pitching the thing to studios in fall of 2022 that I was making my decision about school. And I decided to pick that I was going to really hold on. It was after we went with A24 and they optioned the thing.”.

Even now. as “Backrooms” appears poised to be a major summer hit. Parsons doesn’t act like Hollywood has fully absorbed his sensibility. He says there are plenty more stories to tell in the liminal horror universe. and he deliberately chose not to reveal too much about what he views as the “Backrooms” mythology—though he says there’s lore ready when the time comes.

“I have a 70-page document,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t like drowning people in lore and mythology. I think it’s an irresponsible creative choice. It happens a ton online when an independent artist gets to the spotlight. so to speak. for a little bit where they make a single indie game. like a beta testing of a game or something. And then there’s all this traction. And then YouTube channels begin picking up

art and covering it as though it’s a finalized creative item with a deep hidden lore and stuff. And then it leans way too hard into the lore aspect. And you just get this weird bloat where it becomes very alien to people who aren’t approaching. who aren’t avid fans of this thing and are approaching it for the first time. They’re suddenly coming into it, and it’s made inherently for YouTube channel dissection.”.

He continued. “And I sometimes make stuff with the desire to have people take a look at it and pick it apart. and that’s part of the experience. But I think when it comes to this kind of thing. and especially trying to transfer it to a feature film. you can easily trip up and try to jam five years of information into a single 90-minute window… My thought process was. if we can avoid that pitfall and do this right. I think it raises our chances of opening the door to being able to continue this in a more well-paced. well-mannered way.”.

His next moves. he says. will likely follow a familiar rhythm: telling more “Backrooms” stories in either an episodic series or more films. while continuing to release YouTube projects. Parsons also keeps insisting on credit boundaries. He doesn’t treat “Backrooms” as a private universe he owns—he stresses that a variety of artists released their own take on those images online. and he just happened to catch on.

“Mine’s just a ‘Backrooms’ story, certainly not the official one,” he said. “There’s no official one.”

With “Backrooms” opening in theaters on Friday, May 29, the real tension in Parsons’ story isn’t just whether his internet-made horror can survive Hollywood scale. It’s how much of his online method he’ll keep—shot by shot—now that college and Hollywood both demand answers.

When he stepped away from the college track, he wasn’t trying to prove anything. He was responding to a moment that arrived early, risked everything, and asked him to choose a future while he was still figuring out the next two years.

Kane Parsons Backrooms A24 Chiwetel Ejiofor Renate Reinsve liminal horror YouTube filmmaker IndieWire interview James Wan Osgood Perkins