There’s a lot to unpack with the massive success of “Backrooms” and “Obsession”: how these two low-budget movies both soared past $100 million at the box office; the YouTube-to-cinema pipeline; and what these films say about the anxieties of a younger generation. Alissa Wilkinson, a Times movie critic, and Jason Zinoman, a Times critic at large and author of “Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood and Invented Modern Horror,” tackled these topics and more.
ALISSA WILKINSON For a long time, certain statements have been repeated so often by people in suits — movie executives, various prognosticators on the Future of Movies — that I almost started to believe them myself. They said that movie theaters are an “outdated concept,” that young people raised on phone-sized entertainment had busted their attention spans so thoroughly that they’d never be interested in watching big-screen cinema, let alone making it.
I haven’t ever really believed it. Here’s the thing: People like movies! They like going to the movies! And while audiences, chiefly older ones, complain about the cost, the crowds, the trailers, whatever — when you get right down to it, going to the movie theater is still just about the cheapest, most fun thing you can do outside the house with your friends on a random Tuesday night.
That brings us to the latest moviegoing phenomenon, the double whammy of two horror films, Kane Parsons’s “Backrooms” and Curry Barker’s “Obsession.” Both directors are Gen Z; both got their start on YouTube; both worked with exceptionally low budgets and made a ton; and both have been wildly successful in ways that studio filmmakers can only dream of.
The very creepy “Backrooms” is based on a 4chan meme that turned into a series of viral YouTube videos. It’s now A24’s biggest opening ever, tripling the studio’s previous best. It made over $80 million in North America on its opening weekend on a budget of just under $10 million. And, to boggle the mind even more, Parsons is turning 21 this month.
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