Why Backrooms Feels So Real

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]What if I told you a 20-year-old made a horror movie that feels more real than most Hollywood [music] films? Millions of people have watched Backrooms, and today it officially became an A24 movie.

[00:00:11]But if you've seen any of Kane's Backrooms videos, you've probably noticed something weird. It doesn't really feel like a movie. It feels real.

[00:00:20]So, why? I went to see Backrooms on opening day to find out. And don't worry, this video is completely spoiler-free. The weird part isn't that it's scary. I already knew it was going to creep me out. It genuinely feels like you're watching something you weren't supposed to see. And after watching the movie, I think I finally figured out why. It starts with the editing, the sound design, and this weird thing Kane does where he keeps you staring at normal rooms until they stop feeling normal. Most horror films want you staring at the monster, but Backrooms has you staring at an empty hallway until your brain sort of starts scaring itself because you've probably never seen a monster in real life, but you've definitely walked into a place and immediately felt super uncomfortable, like a hotel hallway, an office building at night, or a school after everyone leaves.

[00:01:16]Backrooms takes that feeling and turns it into an entire movie. Quick thing, if you're an editor and you like this kind of breakdown, I put a free guide below with 12 viral editing secrets that make videos feel faster and way harder to click off. But that still doesn't explain why this thing feels so real.

[00:01:35]For that, we need to talk about something Kane does that most Hollywood movies are terrified of.

[00:01:43]Doing nothing. Now, if you're worried the movie was going to abandon the old VHS found footage feeling, it doesn't.

[00:01:51]Some of the most intense scenes are still classic Kane pixels found footage.

[00:01:56]Those ended up being the moments where my cheeks were absolutely clenched. The thing that surprised me the most, though, wasn't the monster.

[00:02:05]It was how long Kane was willing to sit in a moment because modern horror movies are absolutely terrified of boredom.

[00:02:13]Like, "Ooh, there's a jump scare!" Then a dramatic music cue. But, Backrooms, there were multiple scenes where I thought, "Wow, that was scary. Glad that's over." And I sort of relaxed.

[00:02:29]But, then the scene just kept going, and somehow it kept getting worse. I'm not even kidding when I say this, but there are found footage scenes in this movie that go 5 to 10 minutes without a noticeable cut. And I was thinking, "Surely they're going to cut now." Nope.

[00:02:47]Nope. It just kept going and going and building the tension. And I love that. I remember one scene where I was staring into the darkness trying to figure out what I was looking at. What freaked me out wasn't what happened next.

[00:03:04]It was realizing that I'd been staring at it the entire time. Then something happened on the complete opposite side of the screen, and it got me so bad. The longer these scenes go on, the more your brain starts looking for something. And oh my gosh. The freaking sound design is absolutely evil because it knows exactly when you're starting to relax. And the jump scares weren't cheap, either. A couple of them were so perfectly [music] timed that they hit me while I was literally breathing in, so I didn't even have air to gasp. And I pretty much just died in my chair. There were multiple times where I couldn't even identify what I was hearing. At one point, there was a part of the soundtrack that sounded like babies crying. And for a second I thought that's what I was hearing. But then it changed or maybe it didn't. I genuinely couldn't tell. I mean it's it sounded human but something about it wasn't. There are entire stretches of this movie with almost no music at all. So you never really know when [music] a scene is over. You never know when you're safe. You never know if the scary part has already happened or if it's [music] still coming. But then the music slowly starts creeping in and somehow the soundtrack of this movie sounds nostalgic and terrifying at the same time. I watched this movie in RPX so every time the bass kicked in my entire seat was thumping. But here's the problem. Long uncut takes aren't new. Great sound design isn't new.

[00:04:43]So why doesn't every movie feel this real?

[00:04:48]Well, the answer hit me a few hours after the movie ended. My brother and I went to IKEA. For some reason IKEA felt weird. I know that sounds stupid but it did. Something was slightly off and I couldn't put my finger on why. Part of it was probably because there was barely anybody there.

[00:05:08]The whole place felt empty so naturally we started making backrooms jokes pretending oh we're trapped help us.

[00:05:17]Filming little POV clips running through the aisles but the longer we were there the less funny the jokes were.

[00:05:24]>> We're not going to make it. We're literally about to be back at where we started. This is not the exit.

[00:05:28]>> Yo, we're trapped.

[00:05:29]>> I can't go. Like genuinely.

[00:05:30]>> At one point we were literally saying we genuinely need to get the heck out of here.

[00:05:36]>> We're going to die.

[00:05:37]>> Now obviously we weren't actually scared of IKEA. That would be insane. But that's what makes this so weird. Nothing changed.

[00:05:46]The store was the same, the lights were the same, the hallways were the same.

[00:05:52]The only thing that changed was me.

[00:05:56]That's when I realized I don't think Kane's biggest achievement was making the Backrooms feel real.

[00:06:02]I think it's that he made reality feel fake.

[00:06:07]I know that sounds backwards, [music] but hear me out. There's moments throughout the movie where even normal places start feeling and looking strange. Like even the clouds have this weird backroomy feeling to them where they look normal, but don't feel normal.

[00:06:25]I think the closest thing I can compare it to is The Truman [music] Show where again, everything looks normal, but it's still feels like the Backrooms are somehow leaking into it. And I think that's what made the Backrooms movie special. The movie didn't make me scared of a monster under my bed or something like that. No, it made me suspicious of normal freaking rooms.

[00:06:47]>> [music] >> And I think that's the whole trick. And if you want to see another video where something looks real at first, but the editing makes you question the entire thing, click this video right here.