3 Movies You Need to Watch If You Loved The Backrooms

I consider myself a huge fan of The Backrooms and concepts like liminal spaces, so if you're reading this article, there's a good chance you're interested in these topics too. A few weeks ago, the first feature film based on The Backrooms was released. It was directed by the iconic Kane Parsons, the same creator who made The Backrooms famous through his YouTube short films, which have accumulated around 200 million views.

If you enjoy this kind of content, there are several movies that came out long before The Backrooms became popular. They don't feature the same endless yellow hallways, but they do capture the feeling of eerie liminal spaces and unsettling environments that fans of The Backrooms will probably appreciate.

With that said, here are three movies about liminal spaces and similar concepts that you should definitely check out.

1. Vivarium (2019)

What would happen if you visited a neighborhood to buy a house and discovered you could never leave? That's the premise of Vivarium. A young couple becomes trapped inside a suburban development filled with hundreds of identical houses where every street seems to lead right back to the same place.

While you won't find yellow hallways here, the movie delivers the same unsettling feeling of being trapped inside an artificial, endless, and completely empty environment. The silence, repetitive scenery, and complete inability to escape reminded me a lot of The Backrooms, although the atmosphere feels even closer to the liminal space aesthetic.

2. Skinamarink (2022)

If you enjoy psychological horror that doesn't rely on constant jump scares, Skinamarink is one of the best recommendations you can find. The story follows two young siblings, ages four and six, who appear to become trapped inside their own home. As the story unfolds, the doors and windows begin to disappear while a mysterious entity stalks them and gives them disturbing commands they feel compelled to obey.

It's a deeply mysterious film that many viewers find difficult to fully understand. However, if you enjoyed The Backrooms, where many events are intentionally left unexplained, there's a good chance you'll appreciate this movie as well.

3. Cube (1997)

If I had to recommend the movie that comes closest to capturing the feeling of The Backrooms, it would probably be Cube. The story follows a group of strangers who wake up inside a massive maze made of interconnected cubic rooms. The problem is that many of those rooms contain deadly traps.

One of the most interesting aspects of the film is that it never fully explains what's really happening. As the characters move forward, they realize the place seems to defy all logic, creating the same unsettling feeling of being trapped inside an endless space that made The Backrooms so popular.

Personally, I've seen this movie, and while the visual effects aren't particularly impressive, that's probably more because of its limited budget than the fact that it was released in 1997. Even so, it's still widely considered one of the movies that comes closest to recreating the atmosphere of The Backrooms, despite being nearly 30 years old.

That's all for today. I hope these three recommendations help you enjoy a great movie night if you're a fan of The Backrooms or eerie liminal space stories.