Kane Parsons’ “Backrooms” grossed nearly $350 million globally. Based on a creepypasta posted to 4chan, the film proves that liminal horror has a place in the modern landscape. It’s less about jump scares and visceral electricity, as you’ll find with Curry Barker’s box office juggernaut “Obsession,” than it is about looming dread and transitional eeriness.
It’s far from the first liminal horror film and won’t be the last. But what “Backrooms” does is finetune the idea of liminality and how spaces often change with time. While mainstream horror hasn’t quite caught on, apart from Parsons’ debut feature, the independent scene has been experimenting with liminal horror for years.
If you’re itching for something similar to Kane Parsons’ “Backrooms,” here are 10 liminal horror movies to watch.
Skinamarink
Kyle Edward Ball’s 2022 feature film, “Skinamarink,” split audiences down the middle. It’s an acquired taste that brings out the fear of being alone as a kid and the evil that lurks in the corners of darkened rooms. The story follows two children when they’re left alone in their house. They’ve camped out in front of a TV set in the living room, coloring books and other toys littering the floor. A sticky blackness creeps up on them, and before long, a disembodied voice can be heard beckoning them upstairs and away from the comforting light of their television programming. “Skinamrink” relies on what’s not seen to scare you, and sometimes, that’s the most frightening way to evoke fear.
“Skinamarink” is now streaming on Shudder.
LandLocked
The little-known “LandLocked” explores the idea of time when a young man returns to his childhood home before it’s scheduled for demolition. Writer/director Paul Owens examines the emotional toll the past can take and how a familiar place, such as a home, can change right before your eyes. While wandering the property, Mason (Mason Owens) discovers a vintage video camera that can see into the past. Worlds collide in this indie gem. Mason begins struggling with the present and the ephemeral nature of his memories, all wrapped up inside a surrealist liminal horror story.
“LandLocked” is now streaming on Tubi.
Vivarium
Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg star as a young couple looking to buy their first house. Director Lorcan Finnegan, who co-wrote the script with Garret Shanley, brings a sense of fervent hopelessness to “Vivarium.” Commentary on the current housing market and the strain on a fresh marriage punctuates the shifting rooms inside the couple’s new house, a carbon copy floor plan in a sterile suburb somewhere in America. In their desperation, they lose a sense of themselves within endless hallways and the suffocating feeling that they’re not alone. “Vivarium” brings new definitions to what it means to be a millennial.
“Vivarium” is now streaming on Tubi.
Pandemonium
Liminality takes the form of pandemonium, or rampant madness, in Quarxx’s heavily slept on film, “Pandemonium.” When Nathan (Hugo Dillon) realizes he died in a car crash, he’s forced into chaos and left to wander a purgatory of sorts. But it’s an impermanent state of being, always moving in the blink of an eye. Nathan meets various lost souls, including a young child, in a journey into and out of himself.
“Pandemonium” is now available on VOD.
The House Was Not Hungry Then
Harry Aspinwall’s “The House Was Not Hungry Then” bears a striking resemblance to Steven Soderbergh’s “Presence” but leans further into liminal horror. A secluded house in the countryside eats people. Whoever has the misfortune of traversing through its many rooms falls prey to the house’s bottomless hunger. The camera glides through the house, almost ghost-like, eerily consuming space itself. There might not be a human body in any particular scene, but there’s a suffocating dread that permeates every inch of the screen. Subtitles give a glimpse into the house’s wants and needs, and you’re just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“The House Was Not Hungry Then” is now available on VOD.
Alone with You
“Alone with You,” written and directed by Justin Brooks and Emily Bennett, sees a young woman losing her mind while waiting for her girlfriend to return home from a business trip. Her mental state quickly deteriorates as she begins hearing sounds coming from her air vents and can’t seem to escape her apartment. Time both trickles and races by, and her hunt for answers leads to the walls closing down around her. Brooks and Bennett also squeeze a powerful metaphor about mental health into the film’s walls, clawing and scratching at the viewer.
“Alone with You” is now streaming on Tubi.
Exit 8
Subways were already terrifying, but Genki Kawamura’s “Exit 8” brings the fear pulsing in your brain. A young man exits a subway train and follows the signs to the exit, but it leads him into a loop. He must pick out the differences between each passage, much like one of those spot-the-differences picture games, before he can move to the next level. He meets several other people, seemingly trapped within the same subway tunnel, and his willpower is tested. “Exit 8” is a trippy, exhausting liminal horror that keeps the tension taut until the very final frame.
“Exit 8” is now available on VOD.
Knocking
Frida Kempff’s “Knocking” is a one-location liminal horror film that makes great use of its meager resources. The film, written by Emma Broström and Johan Theorin, follows a young woman newly released from a psychiatric hospital. Once she settles back into her apartment, she begins hearing strange knocking and other sounds. The walls seem to be breathing, as though a living creature of their own. “Knocking” is not your typical liminal horror, with its focus primarily on the significance of sound within spaces and time.
“Knocking” is now streaming on Tubi.
The Night
Director Kourosh Ahari mixes traditional horror with the liminal variety in his 2020 film, “The Night.” When an Iranian couple stops at a hotel in the middle of the night, they immediately experience strange occurrences within their room and the hotel’s many hallways. They’re eventually pushed to their limit and get locked inside the hotel, unable to find help. “The Night” seems endless, and the rooms take on a life of their own.
“The Night” is now streaming on AMC+.
Come True
“Come True” blends the liminality of the mind’s suffocating rooms and the physical spaces of a sleep clinic. Writer/director Anthony Scott Burns creates a story that feels dreamy, yet grounded in a version of reality. A young woman is strapped for cash, so she signs up for a sleep study. She expects to find solutions to her erratic sleep schedule and her intense nightmares about a maze and a shadowy figure. She soon succumbs to an immobilizing dream state and must figure her way out.
“Come True” is now streaming on AMC+.
