Kane Pixels’ “Backrooms” – The Best Piece of Internet Horror

The Backrooms have started to become a hot topic once again. With the streaming of the Backroom movie in theaters, people who have never really engaged with it before have started doing their own digging on the Backrooms. Unfortunately (or fortunately), not everyone is quite as well-versed in Internet horror as myself and maybe even you, unless you are a part of that everyone. Well, don’t you worry then, because now, we are getting into Kane Pixels’ Backrooms, one of the most renowned web series in modern internet history.

The Origin of the Backrooms

The Backrooms, like too many an Internet phenomena, originated from 4Chan. In September of 2019, an Anon (or anonymous user) posted on 4Chan. In their post was a picture of a very uncanny  looking space, a corridor of yellow wallpaper and yellow carpet. The photo came alongside text on the post which read as follows:

“If you’re not careful and you no-clip 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. God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you.”

This post, and especially the photo that came with it, started the explosion of backroom-related media and the general interest of the Internet in the concept of the Backrooms. And with it came newer concepts specifically related to the Backrooms, some even mentioned in this original 4Chan creepypasta.

No-Clipping

One word that might have jumped out to you in the original 4Chan was the word, “no-clip”. To some of you, if you are gamers, it might be familiar. But for the rest of us (myself included), this term isn’t already a part of our personal dictionaries. Well, in video games, no-clipping is when the player glitches out and passes through solid parts of their gaming environment. For example, the character might glitch and pass through a wall that was meant to be solid in the game world or pass through floors of a building within that world. It’s often used as a cheat code in games to simply pass through collisions in the game environment. 

But how does that relate to the Backrooms? Well, this original idea of the Backrooms, which is the one adopted and expanded upon in the following years, adapted the “no-clipping” concept from video games to real life. Essentially, no-clipping is when you “glitch” out of the world you live in and into the universe of the Backrooms. It’s an anomaly in the atmosphere and universe, making it a difficult concept to explain. 

However, Kane Pixels’ Backrooms expands more on the concept of no-clipping within his series. He expands it to the concept of null zones, places in which the Backrooms and reality intertwine. Essentially, when a person reaches a null zone, they will no-clip into the Backrooms as they have reached a place where the divide between the two worlds are weakest.

Kane Pixels

“Kane Pixels” is the YouTube username of the man Kane Parsons. As you know, he is the creator of Backrooms, the web series he created on his YouTube channel which garnered exceptional fame. In his YouTube channel description, Kane describes himself as a director and VFX artist, both of which pertain to his creation of Backrooms. Kane was 16 years old when he started the Backrooms web series and it quickly blew up, becoming not only Internet-renowned, but also the face of the Backrooms creepypasta as a whole.

The reason he created Backrooms, Kane said, was not just because of great interest in the concept of the creepypasta; in fact, it was also because of the lack of quality content surrounding it. There were just Wiki pages of people’s own headcannons, sometimes each conflicting, and became a pool of just people’s ideas. There was nothing of concrete quality, nothing of 

Backrooms Web Series

 In 2022, Kane uploaded a video called, “the Backrooms (Found Footage)”. This single 9 minute video that started a chain of one of the greatest unfiction works of all time, and it’s that work we’ll be diving into in this section.

Just a warning before we move on: there will be a ton of spoilers here on out. This series is an incredibly well done piece and I highly suggest you watch it before continuing on.

The Very First Video – the Backrooms (Found Footage)

This very first video starts with someone recording an informal film. The cameraman, whose perspective the whole video is shot from, is video taping what seems to be a scene of a horror film, with a creature creeping up on another character. A voice outside the camera perspective says “cut”, and the person enters the view. They give the cameraman a few instructions, telling him to take a wide angle shot. However, as the cameraman moves back, he no-clips out of reality into this eerie yellow corridor.

The man walks around the Backrooms for a while, seeing that it’s full of the same corridors going on into infinity. However, he comes upon a wall with scratchy writing in black ink. They are warnings and tips, full of strange and ominous messages. However, right at that moment, an awful noise erupts from one side of the camera man. A Lifeform is there, and it’s now chasing him.

The chase scene goes on for a while, and the cameraman starts to get further away from the thing. They hide in a small, dark corridor, the Lifeform looming outside. The cameraman moves towards the end of the corridor and sees a hole, but as he turns back, the Lifeform is staring right into his face. The cameraman is attacked but the camera no-clips back into reality.

The Reception

This small video ended up being a roaring success. Everyone was deeply interested in the storyline Kane had started. Amongst the mess that was the backroom’s content landscape, Kane Pixels’ Backrooms posed as a proper, intriguing, and well thought out storyline. Everyone wanted him to continue pursuing this storyline, because even back then they knew that this level of creativity and thoughtfulness was sure to reform the entire perception of the Backrooms. And they were right to think so, because it did.

Kane proceeded to upload 24 more videos related to the Backrooms, creating the web series that is famously Kane Pixels’ Backrooms. They were not all found footage like the first one—some of them were archive files (even put in as unlisted for the suspense), TV PSA’s and private films for the main company of the series. Everything within the web series puts together an incredible, complex, and fascinating storyline while still leaving some things up to the audience’s interpretation.

Async

Kane Pixel’s web series primarily centers around a research institute known as Async. Originally, Async was focused on creating MRI machinery. However, since the discovery of the Backrooms, they entirely focused on fully discovering the Backrooms, which they call the Complex. But why did they want to investigate the Backrooms? Well, the Backrooms are an infinite space so Async wanted to utilize that space for human inhabitance. They wanted to use it as real estate to sell it to make residential areas, office spaces, or anything that’ll make them the most money. There is literal infinite space here so it is a gold mine of real estate and Async wanted to be the first to exploit that.

However, since the Backrooms are so little investigated, Async had to first fully map out and revamp the Backrooms to be ready for selling. As you will see later on, there are monsters and entities within the Backrooms and strange phenomena caused by it that needs to be controlled prior to selling it. 

The Lifeform

The Lifeform is the creature we see in the very first video, “the Backrooms (Found Footage)”. It’s a strange looking thing, with a long and tall wiry body and no visible face. It seems to be a humanoid tangle of black wires, but it isn’t quite that. 

The theory for this creature is that it is actually a creature formed by bacteria. This bacteria is known as hay bacillus, one commonly found in human digestive tracts. Something about the Backrooms warps them and causes them to attack their host, or the human. It decomposes the body strangely, eating away some parts and leaving others intact. Eventually, the entire body is completely gone, leaving only the clothes the person was wearing. Then, the bacterias slowly mutate and become the Lifeform. While doing so, they seem to be shut down, like a caterpillar in its chrysalis, slowly evolving into the large entity that is the Lifeform.

The Lifeform also attempts to mimic humans, especially in the voice. It is often seen calling out to the people in human-like voices, sometimes in reverse and other times in a perfectly fine manner. They seem to do so to lure the victims into their grasp to attack it afterward. 

The Still-Life

The Still-Life is another creature created by the Backrooms in an attempt to make a “human”. Unlike the Lifeform, it is clearly a better attempt, with a humanoid figure and clothes. It also seems to make human life actions as it knocks on doors and turns off lights. It is also very aggressive, as in its appearance in Found Footage #3, it immediately chases after the protagonist of the video.

Project KV31 – Low-Proximity Magnetic Distortion System

The Low-Proximity Magnetic Distortion System (LPMDS) is the machine used by Async to create a portal of sorts to enter the Backrooms. It uses the magnetic and electromagnetic fields to change the fabric of reality. This creates the Threshold, the portal into the Backrooms. This is so that Async researcher can enter the Backrooms in a controlled manner without needing to no-clip through null zones.

Ivan Beck

Ivan Beck, as Kane Parsons has said himself, is both the protagonist and antagonist of the series. He is the vice president of Async and his main goal is to figure out the Backrooms. Ivan was born in Czechoslovakia but most of his work is done in the United States, as you see throughout the series. He is the one we see in the chronologically first video, Overflow, who creates the earliest prototype of the LPMDS. 

Theory states that Ivan Beck actually suffered from post-traumatic amnesia due to an eye injury. Post-traumatic amnesia is when the brain somewhat loses function directly after a brain injury, causing memory loss. In the majority of cases, the memory is regained soon after, but sometimes, the memory can last months and even years. That is the case with Ivan Beck, as he has lost much of his memories. Based on the music that Kane Parsons has created based on the Backrooms, some people theorize that the reason Ivan so passionately pursues the Backrooms is because the Backrooms may hold a remedy for his condition.

Timeline of Videos

The videos within the web series aren’t necessarily in the chronological order of the story’s timeline itself. You see, with internet and analog horror, or in the general unfiction genre, it’s pretty normal to upload videos at differing parts in the story’s timeline. It adds to the mystery, as with most web series like Kane Pixel’s Backrooms, it’s up to the viewers to put the puzzle pieces together. That’s what makes internet horror so fun—you feel included in the story in every way possible. If you want to learn more about the internet and analog horror like Backrooms, be sure to check out my article on analog horror or the analysis of “Opal”, an incredible short horror film online. So, before we begin, make sure to check out this playlist with all the videos in order.

1. Backrooms – Overflow

Ivan Beck was testing magnetic distortion devices during the 1970’s, the earliest experimentations leading up to the LPMDS. This video in particular was taken in 1972 during the Solar Storms (and this actually happened, not just in this Backrooms verse!). The Solar Storms disrupted the magnetic fields incredibly, and at the same time, opened the first door to the Threshold.

2. Backrooms – Prototype

This video shows a prototype to what was later the LPMDS. Here, a circular wheel-like device has a metal ball placed directly in the middle up. The attempt was to see if that metal ball could be transported through the Threshold to the Backrooms. That is exactly what happened. 

3. Backrooms – The Third Test

This video shows a more advanced model of LPMDS than we saw in the prototype. The door-shaped machine begins whirring and forming a portal of sorts within it. However, it is unable to fully create the gateway, shutting down slightly before it could fully form.

4. Backrooms – First Contact

This video introduces the final model of the LPMDS. The film begins like a video made by Async describing the LPMDS with its structure and function. It then clips to footage of the LPMDS at work. Like in the “Third Test”, the door starts twisting into a portal made of bright yellowish light. However, this time, it doesn’t shut down. It keeps going until the sirens start going off and machinery surrounding start breaking. 

It then clips to a black screen outlining a map of sorts. Voices behind it start talking about the LPMDS, one telling to shut the machine off while the other urges to keep it on. At the very end, we see the LPMDS again. Everything around it is in utter disarray, broken and disrupted. However, right in the doorway is something clear that we have yet to see—the Backrooms.

5. faultline.mov

This video shows what seems to be an old news clip from 1989. It’s describing the effects of the devastating Loma Prieta earthquake, which again, did actually happen! The timing of his earthquake, however, directly aligned with the first opening of a proper portal into the Backrooms that we saw in “First Contact”, inferring that the portal had something to do with it. This is mainly to show the absolutely disruptive and destructive effects of breaking the boundary between the real world and the Backrooms, only foreshadowing the devastating events to follow.

6. Backrooms – Lighting and Tile Survey

This video discusses the anomalous nature of some of the architectural units within the Backrooms. Here, an Async worker explores the Backrooms following an audio guide. The next day, Dr. Julia Meisner reports on the lighting and tile fixtures themselves. She discusses how the lights and tiles are completely normal besides their non-standard dimensions. They also seem to not be attached to any power-source, suggesting they might be autonomically powered.

7. 9780415263573

This next video shows how null zones work, especially outside of Async. The thing is, when Async opened the Threshold into the Backrooms, they also opened other null zones through which unassuming people could fall through. Here, a car on the highway suddenly disappears as it has hit a null zone and entered the Backrooms.

8. Backrooms – Missing Persons

When Async had opened the Threshold, there simultaneously was an increase in missing persons reports. The video shows numerous missing persons posters, ranging from adults to even a baby. The video then cuts to one of an Async research team exploring the Backrooms. They then come across a body of one of the missing persons. Surrounding the body is this strange black substance, splattered across the floor and wall.

9. Backrooms – Autopsy Report

The body found in “Backrooms – Missing Persons” is sent to a pathologist for an autopsy. The pathologist determines that the subject was starved as a cause of death. However, more important was the strange black substance. This substance was determined to be a sort of bacteria that had overtaken the corpse of the subject. This bacteria is the one the Lifeform is theoretically made up of. 

10. Backrooms – Informational Video

The video begins with an informational segment, explaining how the Async employees should enter the Backrooms, or the Complex as they call it. It explains, mainly, how people should always enter the Complex supervised and with others to ensure safety. Ironically enough, that was not good enough as we see in the rest of the video. Async employee Peter Tench alongside his team. However, in the middle of their exploration, Peter starts hearing sounds and moves towards them, asking his team if they noticed it too. His team seems to ignore him, and with a sudden glitch, they disappear. 

During this time, Peter had actually travelled 2 months into the future so Async presumed he was dead. This shows the scary depth to which the backrooms can alter the space-time continum. It not only exists as an anomalous unlimited space where its very opening wreaks havoc across the normal world, but it can alter the fabric of time itself to “trap” the people who enter.

11. Backrooms – Motion Detected

This next video shows a series of camera footage of when motion was detected in the backrooms. It starts off as the normal movements of the Async employees, but slowly, we see something more sinister at play. This is Async’s first introduction to the Lifeform.

12. Mar11_90_ARCHIVE.tar

This video shows a series of footage from the Async archive. They show photos of some lesser known places in the backrooms, some of employees at work, and some of the findings of the researchers. One of the most important pictures in the slideshow is that of the null zone, showing that Async is slowly discovering the machinery of the Backrooms.

13. Backrooms – Pitfall

This video follows one of the researchers, Marvin Leigh, as they explore the Backrooms. He comes across a unique area of the backrooms where large square holes cover the ground. Marvin attempts to cross through the holes but ends up slipping into one of them. He falls into a different area of the Backrooms where everything seems the same except for the slightly greener wallpaper. The hole he fell through was too big to climb up, forcing him to wait there until his team could help him out.

However, while he is waiting, Marvin hears what appears to be someone yelling down the halls. He goes to investigate and sees a gap at the bottom of the wall at the very end. From under the gap he could see a full street with a tunnel at the end. The yelling is coming from somewhere in there. Marvin advances throughout the street, calling out to find the origin of the sound, which he soon finds to be coming from one of the houses. He enters the house and a strange room filled with a bunch of “left only, straight only” traffic signs. The sound continues from a hallway branching from the room so the researcher continues there.

Marvin ends uo in another strange room with chairs, cardboard and shackles. He presumes that, based on the scenery and the yelling he had been following, someone was living there. He hears the yelling again, and thinking he’s close to the person, Marvin calls back out to them. However, what turns the corner is not a human—it’s the Lifeform.

A chase scene ensues until Marvin reaches the hole he fell from. His team is able to rescue him before he is caught, but this marks Async’s first documented encounter with the Lifeform.

14. Backrooms – Report

The report directly follows the events of “Backrooms – Pitfall” as the researchers analyze the footage gathered by Marvin. They soon decide to close off areas like the one Marvin came across that they presume to be dangerous. 

15. Backrooms – Presentation

This video begins by describing the goals Async has for the Backrooms, that being selling it as real estate, It advertises the backrooms for its storage space and potential for human inhabitance, justifying its research within the Backrooms, throughout, the video occasionally cuts to the researchers behind Async actually doing their jobs.

At the very end, however, the alarms start going off—someone has entered through the Threshold. That someone just so happens to be Peter Tench, the man who they all presumed dead. What was a few hour long escape of the Backrooms for Peter happened to be a two month long disappearance for the rest of the world.

16. _recording014

Clyde, a member of Async, calls Ivan Beck to discuss with him the problem they just encountered with Project KV31. That problem is the reappearance of Peter Tench. When Peter’s identity is revealed, Clyde says “this isn’t him, is it?” As he says so, a newspaper fades into view of the camera, a headline reading “FIERY WRECK BESIDE VINEYARD LEAVES 1 DEAD.”

17. Backrooms – Reunion

In this video, Async starts exploring past the barrier they created for the area that Marvin has entered. This time, Team B (Marvin Leigh, Mark Blume, and Randall Tachi) advances into one of the rooms, or the holes that Marvin had originally fell in, this one labelled 14C. As they continue, they begin to notice ceiling tiles that are on the floor, something uncommon in the Backrooms. Soon enough, they come across what seems to be a hand-drawn map on one of the walls. As Mark tries to call back to the headquarters, the signal is dead and the group turns and heads to the entrance. However, just as they do so, someone attacks them. That someone just so happens to be Peter Tench.

Peter takes a hold of the gun and asks the group to answer a few questions for him. Marvin recognizes that it is Peter who he is talking to and is absolutely dumbfounded. Async had told them that Peter had died. As Peter keeps talking, it seems as though Async fabricated Peter’s death and were keeping him from going back to the public.

Right during this time, Mark gains signal and calls back to the headquarters, demanding immediate backup. And unfortunately, as he didn’t heed to Marvin’s warnings, Mark is then shot dead by Peter.

18. Backrooms – Damage Control

The video starts with Mark’s call back to headquarters before he is shot. Through security cameras, we see that Peter has escaped Room 14C and is entering the Async company building. With a gun in hand, he is able to keep the employees from attacking him as he moves throughout. She escapes the building, blocking the employees before they could reach him.

Async’s Explaination

Next comes a long voice recording broadcasted to all Async employees to clear up the situation. It outlines a full series of events with Peter Tench as they had not disclosed it to the company prior. As you know, Peter Tench had been forced into a time jump of two months when he was exploring the Backrooms with his team. However, in that time, Async had created a cover story for his supposed death to draw suspicion away from the company. When he came back, they held in confinement to question him and kept him there to find a way to reintegrate him into society. 

However, in that time, Peter’s mental state took a toll as he was deprived of sensory stimuli and socialization. He began having delusions that Async was a tool of the Backrooms to manipulate him again. Peter escaped the confinement and entered the Backrooms with a stolen ID. This is when the scene previously with Team B occurred. Peter then escapes the building and runs out before the security team could catch him. However, soon after, Peter Tench was allegedly found dead on the hillside due to a blow to his head. The broadcast closes off by saying they will keep the former narrative they had for the public, that Peter Tench had always been dead.

The video ends with a phone ringing and remaining unanswered, a phone call many speculate was incoming from the escaped Peter Tench to his family.

19. Backrooms – Static Dead End

This video begins with a phone call between Marvin and George, another employee in Async. Marvin is exclaiming how he thinks that Async was still lying about Peter while George tries to calm him down.

The next half of the video is that of George in the Backrooms. An employee guides him to a strange room that is still safe. In it, the furniture is strangely sunken into the walls and floors, a single chair standing properly upright on a hillier part of the floor.

This video really shows how the Complex is an entity of its own. It takes memories from the people who enter it to create what it does. All of it, from the rooms to the creatures, is its attempt to recreate the experiences and familiarities of the subjects. However, as it duplicates the memories and copies them further on, it slowly starts to forget what the image was originally meant to be. That’s when rooms like these appear, ones that stray further and further away from human reality.

20. The Backrooms (Found Footage)

This video was already explained just prior, but it is quite interesting to see how the first video made in the web series is actually quite later in the timeline.

21. Simpsons

This video features an episode of The Simpsons called “Bart Gets Hit By a Car.” The episode seems to be proceeding normally until a sudden interference occurs. The video cuts into a commercial in Spanish and back to the Simpsons episode, only the screen is blank and the audio is fumbled. Soon after, the episode returns to normal. 

This disruption was most definitely caused by the opening of a Threshold. However, it cannot be the first time the Threshold had opened. The Threshold was first opened in the 1980’s while this episode premiered in 1991 and was released in 2000. It is possible, then, that Async had opened one of the larger thresholds they promised in “Backrooms – Presentation.”

22. Backrooms – Found Footage #3

This video is the longest there is in the entire series, spanning a whole 45 minutes. It follows a new protagonist, Ravi, a normal person who is not Async-affiliated. It starts by showing clips of his normal life with Ravi finally coming home to finish some work. He then hears a noise and investigates the basement to see what happened. Suddenly, the lights flicker and the ground shakes, and Ravi is transported into the Backrooms.

Ravi spends his whole time in the Backrooms desperately searching for an escape. Unfortunately, he just keeps moving deeper and deeper into the Backrooms, discovering new areas that Async has yet to show us or find in the web series. Ravi also ends up encountering the Still Life (its first appearance in the series) but escapes it successfully.

Most importantly, Ravi finds another man in the Backrooms. However, they are unable to see each other, only hear each other’s voices. The man believes Ravi is stuck in the walls and starts trying to tear through him. However, the man ends up no-clipping away from the area altogether.

Ravi starts recounting an old childhood memory while alone in the Backrooms. And as the camera dies out, Ravi’s final words are cut short and his fate yet to be known.

23. Home_27647.mov

This video just seems to be a montage of memories of a person. While it seems relatively unimportant, one of the paintings featured in the video appears in “Backrooms – Found Footage 2”, furthering the concept of the Backrooms’ use of memories.

24. Backrooms – Found Footage #2

The protagonist of this video, Madison, had already found the null zone prior, now videotaping it to keep as proof of her discovery. She marked the null zone with blue tape, dropping objects into it to prove that there was something wrong with the area. She starts letting a tape measure down through the null zone, attempting to measure it. However, right then, she is pulled into the Backrooms.

Madison starts exploring around the backrooms, bewildered at the endless rooms and weird furniture. She finds a hole in one of the floors, and she continues further into the backrooms, more fallen ceiling tiles. She then comes across a car crashed into a wall surrounded by that same black substance.

As she continues throughout the Backrooms, Madison comes across an area that looks like a real house. She goes through the hallway that is filled with green lightA large, black, wiry thing is nestled in one of the rooms, expanding its limbs across the whole room. This thing, as you know, is the Lifeform, but it appears to be resting. Madison zooms in on one of the paintings, the same one that had appeared in “Home_27647.mov.”

The Chase

The Lifeform suddenly awakens and begins chasing Madison throughout the Backrooms, making guttural sounds. She then comes to the same hole she saw earlier, and for her own escape, decides to jump into it. She then finds herself in a pool area (a reference to the pool room) and finds more green light in there. The creature makes a sound and Madison quickly climbs up the ladder and continues running down the hall, finding herself in a three-fold path. She takes the rightmost one but ends up at a dead end. Madison stays, hoping the creature doesn’t find her. 

However, just then, the entrance to the dead end starts shifting and widening and streaks of green electricity engulfs the room. The video cuts off quickly, instead fading into a TV showing a “no signal” screen.

25. I Remember

The final video is a recitation of poetry of sorts. The words read as the following:

I had a home once

A manor overlooking the sea

Upon the world, this was a vestige

Calling forward onto strangled ears

But when the skies turned dark

The house was taken by the sea

A pillar truncated

Cast down to the seabed with all the other forgotten things

But I remember

Fleeting shells sinking ever slowly

Folding downwards, into themselves

Forever tearing along the seams of the sky

Until nothing remains except the eternal ghost

And you ask yourself…

Could there ever be anything greater than this?

You have always been here

This final piece, as I read it, seems to be a message from the Backrooms. The poem itself talks about a place that someone holds dearly to them but one that has been long forgotten. The Backrooms itself are categorized as a liminal space, a transitional place that people find familiar but cannot distinctly remember. The Backrooms in this web series take peoples memories to try to build itself, often morphing those memories into something unfamiliar and not “homely.”

When the poem says the house is “cast down to the seabed with all the other forgotten things” but the narrator “remembers”, it could potentially be alluding to the kind of memories the Backrooms take. These memories are of those liminal spaces, places we knwo but don’t truly hold importance to. It takes those places to form itself, essentially being the one to remember our forgotten memories.

The final line, “you have always been here”, is so striking and so beautiful. It is almost as if the Backrooms is telling its victims that it is nothing new to them—everything that exists in the Backrooms is a culmination of their own memories and their own familiarities. Hence, even though they don’t think they’ve ever been in a palace like this before, they have always been there.

The Psychological Horror of the Backrooms

The Backrooms by Kane Parsons, the web series as well as the movie itself, is an incredible piece of psychological horror. The Backrooms itself are something derived from human curiosity and imagination of a space beyond our own comprehension. However, Kane takes it a step further, making the Backrooms an entity in and of itself, attempting to replicate something familiar to humans. However, its lack of humanity is what makes the Backrooms so unsettling—it can never properly replicate human experience, giving it that uncanny feeling. 

The Uncanniness

The creatures are rooted in some sort of reality to humans as well. The Lifeform is a real bacteria that actually lievs inside us, and the horror of what the bacteria does becomes so much more frightening when it’s something inside of us. It speaks like a human, even begging for help, makes the Backrooms so much scarier. In a space so unfamiliar and unknown, the only thing that seems to be “one of us” ends up being our demise. The Still-Life as well, with its much more humanoid appearance, makes it even harder for victims of the Backrooms to trust anything that seems remotely familiar in there.

What Kane Pixel’s version backrooms does is mess with the mind of the people. It takes something familiar and distorts it so that it’s untrustworthy. The unlimited space of the Backrooms and its unpredictable nature makes it impossible to be certain of anything in there. The level of paranoia that Kane creates with this atmosphere is felt by the viewers, because in this case, it’s not really unwarranted. That feeling of being trapped with no escape eats away at the mind, maybe even before the bacteria eats away at the body.

Human Curiosity

However, the pure existence of the Backrooms is fascinating to human beings. That’s why it has garnered so much attention and interpretations. It’s fascinating to think of a place that is so unlimited, uncanny, so familiar yet so different. And so, despite the amount of psychological terror it causes within every victim we see and can predict, we still run back to it out of pure curiosity. That’s what makes the Backrooms so psychologically fascinating. It’s horrid but we can never truly leave it alone.