In February 2023, A24 announced with Atomic Monster, Chernin Entertainment, and 21 Laps that it would adapt Kane Parsons' web series, Backrooms, loosely based on the 4chan creepypasta of the same name. Over three years later, the first trailer for The Backrooms was released, alongside a rating that has surprised some fans of the internet phenomenon.
Per AMC and A24's promotional website for the film, The Backrooms will be rated R. As of writing, there is no official MPA rating or disclaimer, meaning the film could be restricted for any number of reasons, from excessive gore to explicit language.
The Backrooms will be led by A Different Man star Renate Reinsve, a concerned therapist named Dr. Kline, and former Doctor Strange villain Chiwetel Ejiofor, who plays her patient, Clark, who has grown increasingly obsessed with a place filled with seemingly endless rooms. Clark eventually gets lost, as one does in the Backrooms, and Dr. Kline goes below and beyond for her patient, following Clark into the rooms in an attempt to save him.
Some Fans Surprised by The Backrooms Rating
While many fans like /u/KehreAzerith on the Backrooms subreddit expressed that they were "Very glad it's rated R," some less familiar fans of Parsons' work were confused or concerned by the mature rating.
On the box office subreddit, /u/SirCarlosSpicyweiner hoped that it didn't mean it would have gore and believed that The Backrooms should "capture the liminal horror properly:"
"This should not have gore. It’s should be [eerie], curious sometimes dreadful, and thought provoking.
I really hope they capture the liminal horror properly."
Another user on the same subreddit, /u/PhilyJFry, expressed concern over kids, the "majority of the fandom," being pushed out:
"Interesting. Honestly [I don't know] if they'll keep it. Being that a majority of the fandom was kids who will be with parents, I think it'll get pushed down to PG-13. We'll see though."
Kane Parsons' Backrooms web series, which is the primary inspiration for this film, has no relation to any of the video games, the Backrooms wiki, or TikTok videos that have spawned from the original 4chan post.
There Have Always Been Monsters in the Backrooms (And Swearing)
For anyone familiar with Parsons and his work, they will know that his Backrooms series is quite liberal with its swearing, letting characters scream terrified f-bombs as they run for their lives, or even mutter it to themselves in shocked terror at the impossibility of their distorted surroundings. Even in Parsons' first video, The Backrooms (Found Footage), the protagonist used it several times.
However, it's unlikely that A24 would restrict the film's audience due to adult language, suggesting that Parsons took advantage of the rating and employed excessive blood and violence. Last year in Parsons' Discord server, he told one fan that, "If I get my way," the movie would be rated R. Unlike Five Nights at Freddy's, Parsons managed to avoid a PG-13 rating.
Outside of swearing, while Parson's series hasn't been violent enough to warrant an R rating, there have been moments that have come close; two videos show a decayed body and one with a man being killed with a shotgun, albeit with the '90s camcorder in the dark, obscuring most of the violence.
It wouldn't be surprising if Lukita Maxwell and Finn Bennett, two actors in the film's cast, are Clark's two friends who accompany him into the Backrooms, as seen in the trailer. This way, the film could have an actual body count at the hands of whatever roams the rooms.
In the trailer for The Backrooms, Dr. Kline even appears covered in dried blood at one point as she's running from whatever is seemingly chasing her. The blood doesn't seem to be hers, which means she and the audience could witness something truly bloody.
In the 2019 post from 4chan that introduced the lore of the Backrooms, the anonymous user described it as a place anyone could "noclip" into, trapped in "approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms:"
"If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the Backrooms, where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in."
However, many miss the last line of the original 4chan post, which included the lore of "something wandering around nearby" and that if you heard it, then "it sure as hell has heard you:"
"God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you."
There's no doubt that The Backrooms will include monsters, or entities, as other fans call them, with Kane Parsons' web series including a handful of them. But unlike other interpretations of the 4chan lore, Parsons has used them sparingly throughout his web series, which should be reflected in the film, maintaining the liminal horror that attracted fans in the first place.
