“It’s Going To Rip. There’s No Question.” [Exclusive]

Back in 2023, A24 and James Wan‘s Atomic Monster joined forces to adapt one of the internet’s biggest horror sensations to the big screen — The Backrooms. Created by Kane Parsons, better known online as Kane Pixels, and based on a viral creepypasta, the web series blew up on YouTube with its horrifying depiction of the titular maze-like complex beyond the bounds of reality that’s full of anomalies and under the microscope of a research institute trying to understand its mysteries. Nearly three years after the announcement of the feature film, production has since wrapped, and one of its stars, Mark Duplass, has a lot of praise for the young director. In an interview with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff for The Creep Tapes Season 2 at Fantastic Fest, he gushed about working with Parsons and the exciting story he has planned for his theatrical debut.

Duplass understandably couldn’t say much about the story, but Parsons’s many short analog horror films should be a good indicator of what to expect. The original viral story behind The Backrooms stems from an online image of a large, yellow-tinged, carpeted room with buzzing fluorescent lights that is said to await people who “no-clip” out of reality. Parsons expanded on the concept, introducing a research organization known as Async that discovered the Backrooms in the 1990s and began studying them. However, missing persons cases begin to skyrocket once the complex is found, and what awaits these people within is horrors beyond their comprehension.

As a filmmaker himself, helming titles like Baghead, Cyrus, and the anthology series Room 104 with his brother, Duplass was blown away by the level of expertise and confidence Parsons showed while filming. Despite being A24’s youngest director to date, at only 19 years old, he adapted well to the pressures of working with big-name actors for a prestigious studio feature. His ideas for liminal space horror also had Duplass impressed, leaving him feeling very confident in what the final product will ultimately look like.

“I can’t say anything about the story, and I really do want to protect it for Kane. His mind is a backroom, and a beautiful place, a beautiful, liminal space that is somehow not human and beyond all of us. But what I will say is that I have always fancied myself someone who loves to mentor young filmmakers and be around them, and I think that’s part of the reason why I got that gig was thinking, ‘You know what? Kane is 19 and he’s directing a huge studio movie for the first time. It’d probably be good to have Mark around, who’s really good at mentoring people,’ you know? And I was fully ready to do that, and got there, and I was like, ‘This guy is so in charge and knows every detail down to the last thing.’ He was so patient and good with the actors, with us. It was so impressive to watch him command that set in a lovely and humble way. So, look, I don’t know how it’s all going to come together. We’re going to have to see. But I feel very, very comfortable in his hands.”

Duplass Tried Not to Overwhelm Parsons on the Set of ‘The Backrooms’

Although he was more than willing to offer advice and had plenty of questions for the Backrooms creator, the Creep star was careful in his approach. Parsons has made over 20 short films for his YouTube series, garnering over 68 million views with the first episode alone. He’d already cracked the recipe for success and developed his own world, one that Duplass didn’t want to interfere with too much throughout the creative process. He contrasted it with working on The Creep Tapes with Patrick Brice, which was a more collaborative joint effort between two like-minded creators rather than a chance to bring an expansive, unique existing mythology to life in a new way.

“What I discovered is that the nature of Kane’s brain, as I said, is just this really beautiful space, and so what I needed to do is sort of respect and hold the deep mythology going on in his brain, and not clutter that with too many words or too many questions and keep the line of communication very, very simple with him when I had a question for him and not bug him with too much stuff. When I’m working with, like, Patrick [Brice], we’re just like buds, and we’re just talking about everything; Kane is like a museum I wanted to be more careful with, because that’s, I think, what’s required to make the kind of art he makes.”

The rich lore of The Backrooms has both Duplass and Brice excited for what Parsons is going to show with the final product. “It’s a big one,” Duplass added about the mythology, before Brice gave an emphatic vote of confidence to Nemiroff. “It’s going to rip. That movie’s going to rip. There’s no question.” While Duplass joked that “The cast sucks,” a talented group is on board, including himself. He’ll be joined on-screen by Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Finn Bennett, Lukita Maxwell, and Avan Jogia.

What to Expect From ‘The Creep Tapes’ Season 2

Mark Duplass as Peachfuzz holding an axe in The Creep TapesImage Via Shudder

While everyone waits for the sci-fi horror of The Backrooms to no-clip into theaters, Duplass will be re-entering the horror ring himself on November 14 with The Creep Tapes Season 2. He and Brice reunited to pen six new episodes delving deeper into the VHS collection of the socially awkward serial killer, Peachfuzz. As each episode unfolds, the murderer’s intentions slowly become apparent to the victims through his odd behavior, prompting a horrific realization that they’ve made a fatal mistake. Joining Duplass will be a murderer’s row of guests this time, including horror favorites like Late Night With the Devil’s David Dastmalchian and Mike Flanagan regular Robert Longstreet, alongside Katie Aselton, Diego Josef, Desean Terry, Alec Bewkes, Linas Phillips, Taylor Garron, Timm Sharp, Jody Lambert, and Jeff Man.

Season 2 of The Creep Tapes will premiere on Shudder as part of the Season of Screams event, capping off the horror streamer’s tenth anniversary. The Backrooms, meanwhile, has yet to receive an official release date. Stay tuned here at Collider for more on both projects as they draw closer. You can watch Nemiroff’s fulll interview below.

Director

Kane Parsons

Writers

Roberto Patino

Producers

Shawn Levy, Christopher White, Dan Levine, James Wan, Dan Cohen, Michael Clear