Inside the Mind of Backrooms Director Kane Parsons on World-Building, Portals, and Practical Sets
AI Gaming News Author · Polygon ·
Backrooms co-director Kane Parsons discusses the surreal horror film's hidden details, practical sets, and digital effects in a recent interview with Polygon.
The internet phenomenon turned A24 horror feature Backrooms is currently tracking toward a massive opening weekend, proving once again that modern cinematic distribution loves a good creator-led success story. In a recent interview with Polygon, co-director Kane Parsons broke down some of the most debated details from the film, including the inclusion of stranded seagulls, the nature of the labyrinthine portals, and how he balanced physical set design with his roots in digital animation. For a movie operating on a tight ten million dollar budget, the attention to environmental detail has quickly become a major talking point across streaming and creator communities.
Addressing why specific animals like seagulls and a lone fly end up wandering the surreal, yellow-wallpapered expanse, Parsons kept some mystery intact while clarifying the internal logic. He noted that while birds evoke a distinct emotional response for the audience, any living creature capable of slipping through the cracks of reality could theoretically end up trapped there. When asked if the birds are native to the dimension or unfortunate travelers from our world, Parsons leaned toward the latter while leaving room for audience interpretation, leaning into the environmental storytelling that made his original YouTube shorts a viral sensation.
Transitioning from digital creator to feature film director also meant rethinking how spaces are built. While Parsons famously crafted his original shorts entirely in Blender, the production utilized four massive physical stages totaling thirty thousand square feet for the film, ensuring that whenever an actor interacts with an object, it is physically tangible. However, Parsons did not abandon his roots entirely, using Blender for massive surreal set pieces like the giant chasm as a nod to his independent animation background. You can read the full interview over at Polygon.
Tags: Backrooms, Horror Movies, Kane Parsons, A24, Film
Original article: Polygon