Horror is having a real moment in 2026. The genre rides the inescapable wave from last year when “Sinners” and “Weapons” shattered the box office and scooped up several major awards. Other horror films such as Sam Raimi’s “Send Help,” Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride!,” Ian Tuason’s “undertone” and “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” have struck it big with audiences both online and at the box office.
Additionally, Curry Barker’s “Obsession” grossed $247 million domestically and a whopping $405.7 million globally, becoming the highest-grossing film of all time with a budget below $1 million. It had a budget of $750,000 and broke a 53-year record, previously held by Bruce Lee’s “Enter the Dragon,” which was produced for $850,000 and grossed $400 million before inflation adjustment. “Obsession” is now streaming.
To say horror is so back is an understatement. And there’s another horror smash that has racked up records of its own, and it’s heading to streaming very soon.
Kane Parsons’ ‘Backrooms’ Readies Streaming Release
Kane Parsons’ monster box office hit “Backrooms” will release on PVOD on July 14, 2026, as indicated by the film’s landing page on Apple TV. The streaming date follows a mind-blowing box office haul. Released on May 29 by A24, the liminal horror film grossed $190 million domestically and $349.7 million globally on a $10 million budget.
‘Backrooms’ Perfected Liminal Horror
“Backrooms” is the latest link in a long chain of liminal horror. The idea of liminality dates back to psychologist Arnold van Gennep’s 1908 publication, “Les Rites de Passage” (or “The Rites of Passage”). In the piece, he specifically wrote about the stages of a human being’s life, social groups, and the passage of time. The three stages are: Rites of Separation (metaphorical death, breaking past cycles of behavior), Liminal Rites (prescribed sequences and processes initiated by a higher authority) and Postliminal Rites (reincorporation into society as a new being).
These stages characterize much of “Backrooms,” based on a creepypasta posted to 4chan in 2019. Parsons turned the anonymous post into a YouTube series. A24 took notice and produced the 2026 breakout hit. The story follows a furniture store worker named Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who discovers a mysterious door in the store’s basement. When he crosses through the chalk door outline, he stumbles into a time-bending space that has no rhyme or reason for being, other than to evoke a sense of dread and transitional uncertainty.
“Backrooms” isn’t the first liminal horror film. Stanley Kubrick’s is often cited as a foundational genre piece, but the subgenre as we know it didn’t start picking up steam until quite recently. Lorcan Finnegan’s 2019 film “Vivarium” and Kyle Edward Ball’s freaky 2022 film “Skinamarink” pushed the format forward. But it’s “Backrooms” that has stretched the boundaries of liminal horror and cemented what the genre is about. Rooms distort reality and what spaces mean (e.g., the small door on the ceiling that doesn’t quite line up with the rickety staircase).
Kane Parsons invites the viewer into an “Alice in Wonderland”-style world that doesn’t make sense upon first glance, yet if you dig a bit deeper, it has plenty to say.
