My daughters, had been waiting and waiting to see the new scifi horror Backrooms, as they have both been into Creepypasta lore for some time.

Creepypasta, for those who don’t know the internet age equivalent of sitting around a campfire swapping scary stories. It’s main hub is a user-based site where people can contribute horror stories, urban legends and other viral tidbits that can evolve with each user.There are wikis, Youtube channels, and memes a plenty all over inspired by the ever-growing stories and legends.

I had been hearing them talk about this particular piece of lore that was adapted to YouTube four years ago by a 16-year-old who was best known for his cool Attack on Titan inspired animations. My youngest is 16, so that fact alone impresses me.

If you follow any entertainment source you’ll know that this YouTuber, Kane Parsons, was handed the opportunity to turn his found footage video into a feature film. Backrooms is a huge hit, edging out another small original horror, Obsession, for the Number one slot.

There are already plenty of reviews out there for the film, so I won’t bother going down that particular hallway. what I will do, is tell you what I discovered taking my own journey through Backrooms on opening weekend:

The worldbuilding is important. Actors aside, the main character of this film is the environment. The Backrooms are what people want to see..and they want to explore them.

The characters could be anybody. True, the depressing back stories of Clark and Mary play into what they experience in the Backrooms, but you could build a story based on anyone and get an entirely new perspective. I will say both main leads, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve, did an excellent job.

Practical Effects Still Rule. There are some computer effects in this film, but the main setting was an impressive, 30,000 physical set. It was reportedly so big some crew got a little lost in it themselves.

Simplicity can be freaky. Backrooms was Rated R mostly for language and a couple of glimpses of gore, but mostly it was just the unsettling and claustrophobic isolation that pulled you in. It wasn’t so much jump scare driven as it was the feeling of impending doom. Something may or may not be lurking out there, and every blind corner might be the last one we peek around.

The mundane can be even more horrifying. The idea of liminal space in Backrooms works because we don’t end up in a gothic haunted house or an elaborate alien planet These were stark spaces filled with everyday objects. Yet take the familiar and tweak it just a bit here and there..and something will feel very, very “off.” The explanation of having someone who has never seen a dog try to draw it based on someone else’s description was repeatedly brought up in the film. That’s a good way to put it. But is also shows how our own memories can be just a fragment of reality.

It’s open to further interpretation. A good story is going to inspire many even crazier theories and discussions. It brings out the creative forces in the audience wanting to lend their own insights into the story. When we left the theatre, everyone was talking about it. We even talked about the film and places we found creepy (and how cool a story about them would be) the entire way home.

You know you’re on to something when everyone wants to be part of it. The idea of the Backrooms pre-dates Parsons’ video, even through his take on it was the one that really took off. In this age of internet, people want to be part of something clever, and everyone from independent writers and artists to big companies just HAD to do a parody of Backrooms on opening day. I have to give props to McDonald’s for this one:

All this being said. The most important thing myself and many moviegoers REdiscovered in Backrooms was….

People want original, good stories. Storytelling is what movies and television and books should be about. I’m not saying films should never have a life lesson or political view or opinion on whatever social issue they seem fit. Yet, a good story HAS to come first. The human race has been telling stories from spoken word to written word to visual and performing arts as long as they’ve had someone else to tell them to. And a good story will always catch our attention.

Backrooms might be a little too scary for some, or too slowmoving for others, and viewers may have different theories on what was happening, but we can all agree that it is a success. The movie that cost about $10 million to create made its money back on on opening day, had a record breaking box office haul of $81.5 million over the weekend in the United States alone. It gained Parsons the honor of being the youngest director to have a #1 film on opening weekend, and was the largest opening weekend for a horror movie in films history.

The records and praise for this film just go on and on…like the Backrooms themselves.

The question now, is where will they will lead? There might be endless spinoffs or sequels that might be a good or bad thing. There might be new copycat films banking on its success. There also might be new stories coming from untapped sources, or from the minds of new and unknown directors.

The possibilities are endless, and like the Backrooms we don’t know exactly what’s coming. And for an audience tired of the same old thing, that’s a very good thing.