When a 20-year-old director takes the helm of a major A24 horror film, you might expect some hesitation from the cast. Renate Reinsve had none of it.
In a new interview ahead of ‘Backrooms’ May 29 theatrical release, the Oscar-nominated actress opened up about her experience working with first-time feature director Kane Parsons and the reason she trusted him completely from day one.
Renate Reinsve On Kane Parsons’ Visionary Approach To Backrooms
Reinsve was direct about what set Parsons apart: his preparation was immaculate. “He had a world of deep references to what exactly he specifically wanted, like even the wires [in certain shots],” she said, describing a director who wasn’t just pointing a camera but had already mapped out every frame in his head.
That level of specificity is rare, and for an actor stepping into a role as unusual as therapist Dr. Mary Kline, a woman who enters a dimension beyond reality to save her missing patient, having a director who grounded it all made all the difference. Reinsve said she felt “very safe” throughout production as a result.
It’s also a testament to how seriously Parsons took the leap from YouTube to the big screen. The filmmaker began uploading his ‘Backrooms’ series to YouTube as a teenager in early 2022, building a found-footage horror universe from scratch using free software. He inked a deal with A24 at only 19, and the finished film counts James Wan, Shawn Levy, and Osgood Perkins among its producers.
A Set Built To Disappear Into
The production scale Parsons brought to bear was considerable. The set was built to 30,000 square feet of actual Backrooms that the cast and crew could walk around in, to the point where some people were genuinely getting lost. That physical commitment to the world directly reflects the kind of director Reinsve is describing: one who didn’t just talk about atmosphere, but built it.
Reinsve, best known for her work in ‘The Worst Person in the World’ and ‘Sentimental Value’, brings serious dramatic weight to the role, and the film arrives on the heels of her Best Actress Oscar nomination for ‘Sentimental Value’. Opposite her, Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Clark, a man who discovers a mysterious doorway in the basement of a furniture showroom, a portal into an unending maze of rooms that eventually swallows him whole.
The Backrooms mythology has deep internet roots, originating as a 4chan creepypasta about endless carpeted, fluorescent-lit rooms where people can suddenly find themselves trapped, but Parsons clearly had no intention of making something vague or hand-wavy. Every wire in the frame was placed on purpose.
‘Backrooms’ opens in theaters on May 29, 2026.