The new horror thriller Backrooms brings back the Async company from Kane Parsons' original story. The A24 film is a feature adaptation of the Backrooms web series Parsons created, which in turn was inspired by a viral creepypasta. As a result, much of the lore from the web series has been preserved in the feature film, though Backrooms builds on Async's identity and its intentions.
The 2026 R-Rated horror movie, which opened in theaters on May 29, stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as Clark, a furniture store owner who finds a hidden doorway to the extradimensional space known as the Backrooms in the basement of his store. Clark, his staff, and eventually his therapist, Mary (Renate Reinsve), make their way into the Backrooms and begin to discover its sinister secrets.
Warning - This article contains spoilers for the ending of Backrooms.
What is Async Doing in the Backrooms?
The Async Research Institute is first introduced in Parsons' original web series as a company that is invested in mapping the space known as the Backrooms. The company routinely sends hazmat-suited, camera-equipped teams into the liminal space on research voyages, which more often than not end with them being hunted by various monsters that dwell in the Backrooms (or "The Complex" as the company refers to it).
It's steadily revealed throughout the web series that Async is conducting a project, KV31, which involves a Low-Proximity Magnetic Distortion System to create a portal between Earth and the Backrooms.
It's been surmised that Async wants to use the Backrooms as a sort of shipping lane, opening gateways to quickly transport cargo and people through. The company is also invested in "A-SPACE" a seemingly endless storage option to help solve overcrowding.
However, in order to do that, Async needs to properly explore the Backrooms and solve its mysteries to make it safe for its expansion plans - although the nature of the Complex keeps getting in the way.
How Is Async Involved in the Backrooms Movie?
While Clark and Mary are the new main protagonists of Backrooms, Async still appears throughout the movie.
The movie opens in 1990, following one of Async's researchers who has been separated from his group. The researcher documents his voyage on a camcorder and comments that he's never been so deep into space before and is unsure how to find his way out. Eventually, the researcher is stalked and attacked by something dark and humanoid. When the footage cuts out, it's revealed to have been playing on a television, where the reflections of several scientists can be seen watching it.
Then, at various points throughout the movie, Phil (played by The Creep Tapes' Mark Duplass) is shown watching Clark's Backrooms ventures via surveillance camera footage. At one point, Clark stumbles upon a bag of floppy discs and finds the ID badge of an Async employee.
While hints of Async are all throughout Backrooms, the company doesn't fully reveal itself until the last act. After confronting Clark and being hunted by Pirate Clark through the Backrooms, Mary stumbles into a trap set by Async, which draws employees in hazmat suits to the scene and knocks her out.
The Async team returns Mary to the real world. As she is transported through Async's facility, some questions regarding the Backrooms begin to be answered.
There is a room full of bilingual cardboard standees, one of which Clark encountered on his journey through the Backrooms, which appear to have been intentionally placed by Async in The Complex to make contact with the creatures within.
Mary is then taken and interrogated by Phil, who seems like he could be the same Philip R. Heymann referenced in the web series. Phil explains that Async used to be a medical company that built MRI machines, but upon discovering the Backrooms, their objective shifted to mapping out the space. Phil frames it as a research task, but the web series reveals the company has business intentions for it as well.
This short exchange doesn't reveal anything fans don't already know about Async, aside from the reveal of their MRI machine origins.
The irony about this is that the Backrooms, in some ways, act like a human brain, with Still Life creatures appearing as half-remembered versions of people, and hallways and furniture fusing together like poor memories. The movie suggests that the Backrooms respond to the identities and memories of the people who occupy them, so Async's origins as an MRI company (a machine designed to map the human brain) bear parallels to its new mission to map the Backrooms.
