Youtuber-turned-filmmaker Kane Parsons is set to make history as the youngest director seen by A24, leading the upcoming sci-fi horror film, Backrooms, at just 19 (now 20, DOB: 18th June, 2005), and has still given praise to another recent, successful horror filmmaker of today. The heavily anticipated film will see Chiwetel Ejiofor star as a missing patient who had previously expressed distress over a mysterious space cited as the Backrooms, prompting his therapist, played by Renate Reinsve, to track him down in the otherworldly dimension she initially doubted was real.
Additional cast members include Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, and Lukita Maxwell.
Upon Backrooms’ incoming release, Parsons spoke with DiscussingFilm, sharing insight into his dynamic with the fellow horror creator.
“When we started production up in Vancouver, I was working very closely, literally in the same office with Osgood Perkins,” the upcoming filmmaker shared. “So, he’s been a really great mentor figure in a number of ways, in that it’s very much the crew that he and Chris Ferguson put together over a number of years.”
Perkins is the creator behind 2024’s highest-grossing independent film, Longlegs, an unnerving, stylised thriller, psychological horror shake-up starring Maika Monroe and Nicolas Cage. The film was marketed as one of the genre’s scariest releases and banked $128 million worldwide at the box office from its less than $10 million budget. The director is also credited on the supernatural horror The Monkey, adapted from the Stephen King book of the same name from 1980, and Keeper, a folk horror based around an anniversary trip gone wrong.
His additional credits include The Blackcoat’s Daughter, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, and Gretel & Hansel. Longlegs stands as his highest-grossing feature to date.
Parsons added: “And so, I think there’s a lot of secondhand resources I’ve been able to lean on while working on this thing.”
The director also shared how “there’s been all sorts of crazy stuff happening right now with people reaching out,” however, the majority of well wishes have come from “…that group, and it’s been pretty insulated.”
Final comments included mentioning how Backrooms oversaw a “…pretty quiet production, it was very peaceful and fun up there. So, we had a good time with it.”
Parsons’ debut feature focuses on the CreepyPasta/internet phenomenon known as the Backrooms, a liminal space where reality ceases to exist in an extradimensional realm, which the director previously created a YouTube series on starting in 2022. Screenwriter Will Soodik pens a script based on Parsons’ series, which currently holds a total of 197 million views across its 24 episodes, and earned its creator the Streamy Creator Honor Award at the 12th ceremony.
Backrooms hits cinemas on 29th May.
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