Backrooms Has Already Avoided The Worst Horror Movie Fate
Zoë Miskelly is an editor and second in command for Screen Rant's Movies team, having covered the entertainment industry for almost 10 years now. Zoë's love of superheroes and all things Marvel & DC started out in childhood, and has blossomed into a career getting to talk about some of the biggest and best movies and shows of all time, having previously focused on comics while working at WhatCulture.
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Backrooms is already set up in a way that dodges around a prevalent and unfortunate complaint that many horror movies and horror franchises have faced over the years, positioning the 2026 film and the prospect of follow-ups into a promising vantage point.
2026 has been a grand year for the horror genre both financially and when it comes to audience reviews, as the likes of Obsession, Resident Evil, and of course Backrooms have garnered healthy results in each of these fields, providing stories that grip audiences as much as they provide scares and oftentimes deep if troubling characterizations of their central cast.
Though Obsession isn't tied to a wider franchise, its horror movie peers are, with Resident Evil drawing from the beloved video game franchise of the same name, and Backrooms coming from the internet sensation that has been an iconic cornerstone of the world of online horror for quite some time now. As it stands, Backrooms' unusual backdrop when it comes to this matter also equips it to navigate one common challenge that can easily crop up for popular horror films.
Backrooms Already Being Part Of A Beloved Franchise Means It Can Work As A Solo Movie Or Easily Pull Off Sequels
Backrooms' success is, of course, inherently tied to the history and inherent appeal of its premise, and the Backrooms franchise that existed long before we got a film that released in cinemas.
The concept of the Backrooms - a liminal place wherein reality is consistently warped in surreal and often terrifying ways - has been the subject of internet stories for many years, and indeed, Kane Parsons' work on his Backrooms YouTube series played a key role in the 2026's creation with him at the helm.
This setup puts Backrooms in a fruitful position, since it can appeal to those who want a limited or more extensive story experience already. Backrooms works as a standalone story, but those who want more have a treasure trove of videos and written stories awaiting them online around the subject matter.
Helpfully, this also means that, while Backrooms would be fine as a movie that's never followed up on, the already teased prospect of a Backrooms sequel also clearly has a wealth of material to draw from, and plenty of room to expand into given the 2026 film only touches upon much of the lore we've seen established for the wider franchise.
Backrooms' Unique Franchise Setup Means It's Impervious To A Common Horror Movie Issue
Historically, one of the most common and complex issues that have faced the world of horror movies is that of series or stories outliving their promise, and continuing on past the point wherein their narrative was at their richest.
This is by no means a problem that's exclusive to the horror genre, but certainly one that can be evidenced in this corner of the proverbial film woods over the years, since there can be a reliance on big-name series to draw audiences back via nostalgia or prior experience with its type of scares over a narrative's quality itself.
On the plus, Backrooms' specific setup means it does seem to be at least for the time being impervious to this kind of issue. There's active years of development of the concept of the Backrooms themselves to draw on for future stories, plenty of unusual aspects to this surreal setting left to explore, and clear avenues the film franchise could continue in without overextending unnaturally story-wise in order to do so.
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