Stop Trying to Combine ‘Backrooms’ and ‘Obsession’ Into a Single Trend — Opinion

While both horror films directed by young YouTube veterans have given the industry a lot to celebrate, the lessons they offer point studios in two diverging directions.

Hollywood is currently enjoying what NFL teams call a Victory Monday. The box office is booming thanks to two exciting new films that suggest that cinema’s commercial future is brighter than the pessimists think: A24 scored the biggest opening in its history thanks to Kane Parsons’ “Backrooms,” which brought in $118 million worldwide, and Curry Barker’s “Obsession” enjoyed a second consecutive weekend of increased ticket sales that led it across the $100 million mark.

Weekends like this don’t come around much anymore, so the industry needs to celebrate them whenever they happen. The next step is looking for lessons that can be applied to future films. And make no mistake, both “Backrooms” and “Obsession offer paths forward for filmmakers and studios looking to connect with tomorrow’s audiences. But not everyone seems to realize that they’re two distinct paths.

This weekend’s discourse was filled with analysis of varying quality about what Hollywood can learn from the “Backrooms” and “Obsession” phenomenon, with many takes revolving around how they’re both evidence of demand for original horror ideas from young voices aimed at Gen-Z audiences. Some juxtaposed those films’ strength against the 69 percent drop that “The Mandalorian and Grogu” faced as a sign that demand for franchises is shrinking and originality is now king.

There’s a lot of truth to that, but linking the films together too much becomes dangerous. On the surface, they have a lot in common: Both are directed by very young filmmakers (Parsons is 20, and Barker is 26) who built followings on YouTube before making the transition to theatrical filmmaking. And they both capitalized on the ravenous box office demand for fresh, high-quality horror movies with the help of clever marketing campaigns.

But that’s where most of the similarities end. Each film took a different path to finding its audience, and studios looking to repeat their success would be wise to focus on emulating one or the other.

“Backrooms” Is an I.P.-Driven Franchise

In terms of business models, “Backrooms” is the oldest trick in the Hollywood playbook. It’s an adaptation of an intellectual property with a massive fanbase that expanded its signature iconography and left the door wide open for sequels and spinoffs.

To a generation that grew up online, “The Backrooms” are some of the most recognizable images on the internet. What began as a 2019 4chan thread about eerie-looking rooms with jaundiced lighting and endless halls turned into an open-source creepypasta, with countless creators coming up with their own take on the material. Parsons is quick to admit that he did not create the concept, nor is he the only person who has told “Backrooms” stories online. But his found footage videos, which he began uploading to YouTube when he was 16, are the most famous by far. The 24-episode series has racked up over 75 million views since 2022. Parsons’ YouTube channel, Kane Pixels, has over 3 million subscribers.

So while it might strike less online audiences as a completely original movie, A24’s “Backrooms” is not a new idea plucked from a low budget proof-of-concept that went viral. The studio, and producers like James Wan and Osgood Perkins, deserve credit for a number of things, including taking a chance on such a young filmmaker and executing the film in a way that connects with audiences. But the business model is standard Hollywood fare.

“Backrooms” could (and should!) change the way that Hollywood operates, but only by making studios rethink where they find their intellectual property. An appropriate comp might be “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” another Blumhouse project that shocked many Hollywood insiders with its box office dominance despite a generation of teens growing up with the games and the YouTube videos dissecting them. Both films offer proof that great online content is often just one bold investment away from becoming a runaway Hollywood franchise. If studios just become more confident in betting on what Gen-Z and Gen Alpha audiences are already watching, instead of what their parents and grandparents watched, there’s no reason that the success can’t be repeated.

“Obsession” Is an Original Indie Breakout

As you’ve heard a million times by now, Curry Barker also got his start on YouTube. But unlike Parsons, he’s not adapting his previous online work. And there isn’t much thematic similarity between his “that’s a bad idea” comedy sketches — which share more DNA with “I Think You Should Leave” than scary movies — and his current status as one of Hollywood’s horror darlings.

There’s no denying that YouTube helped Barker, giving him a platform to practice filmmaking and build an audience that led him to management and connections. But the success of “Obsession” largely happened within the film industry. The film was independently made for a budget of less than $1 million, and much of the rollout came from the legacy indie film playbook. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it immediately resonated with audiences and sold to a distributor after a splashy bidding war. It went on to play at most of the best genre festivals on the fall circuit before its spring theatrical release. Now, Barker appears to be capitalizing on the film’s success with a more conventional path, signing on to A24’s “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” reboot while shopping his own original projects around Hollywood.

If you’re looking for evidence that quality and originality are still enough to find an audience, “Obsession” is a better case study. There are dozens of genre flicks with similar budgets and casts that die on the vine every year, but “Obsession” is working because the film itself is undeniable. I’d be more inclined to compare it to something like Zach Cregger’s “Barbarian.” Both films saw a relatively obscure comedy star turn himself into a major horror director overnight simply by delivering a movie that was brutal, surprising, funny, and endlessly compelling. Barker’s YouTube following couldn’t have hurt “Obsession,” but the box office growth suggests that it has more to do with incredible word-of-mouth than a creator leveraging his fanbase.

There’s Room for Both

A thriving film industry needs its fair share of both models. A healthy balance of popular franchises and high-quality originals is good for everyone, and the former should ideally create the ecosystem that makes it possible to support the latter. We should all be hoping that plenty of other Gen-Z filmmakers find ways to make their own “Backrooms” or “Obsession.” But before they embark on one of those paths, they have to know which one they’re choosing. Combining the two unique films into a single narrative doesn’t help anyone.

“Backrooms” and “Obsession” are now currently playing in theaters.