Lost in The Backrooms
Most films take you from one spot to another, through the lens of the camera, as stuff happens in front of you. But some “found footage” has become famous for losing the viewer in the in-between. Watch one of the most popular of these efforts, The Backrooms (2022), then discuss with your team: did it make you feel uneasy? Have you ever had a moment when you felt adrift in this way—and, if so, where?
Imagine clipping through the wall of reality into an endless maze of empty office hallways — buzzing fluorescent lights, damp yellow wallpaper, no way out. That's The Backrooms, an internet horror phenomenon. The 2022 found-footage video that made it famous has no monster for most of its runtime, just the dread of being somewhere you were never meant to be.
Key concepts
- Found Footage
- A style filmed to look like real, discovered recordings — shaky camera, no music — blurring fiction and reality so the viewer feels they're really there.
- The Liminal Space As Horror
- A space meant to be passed through, now endless and empty, becomes deeply wrong: The Backrooms turns an ordinary office hallway into terror by stripping away purpose and people.
- The Uncanny
- The eerie feeling when something familiar becomes subtly strange — humming lights and office carpet stretching on forever, emptied of any human reason.
- Emptiness And Dread
- The video's fear comes mostly from absence — no exit, no people, no point — showing that being lost in a meaningless in-between can frighten us more than any threat.
What to know
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01
The horror comes from the space, not a monster — The Backrooms unsettles you with empty hallways long before anything threatens you, proving a liminal setting alone can generate dread.
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