Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve Step Into the Void in A24's Backrooms

The internet has always been adept at scaring itself. But taking a creepypasta—a piece of online urban legend born in a 4chan forum—and turning it into a legitimate cinematic event is something else entirely.

Kane Parsons was just 17 years old when he began adapting the Backrooms mythology into a found-footage YouTube series that would amass millions of devoted followers. Three years later, he's sitting in the director's chair on a full A24 feature—at 20 years old—with two of the most respected actors of their generation anchoring his vision.

Set in the 1990s, Backrooms follows a therapist who ventures into a liminal space outside of reality—an endless maze of yellow-tinged walls and buzzing fluorescent lights—in pursuit of a missing patient and confronts the horrors living inside. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Clark, a furniture store owner whose broken-down life doesn't make sense to him — a man searching for meaning even when what he finds turns out to be a nightmare. Renate Reinsve, fresh off her celebrated run in The Worst Person in the World and Sentimental Value, plays the therapist who follows him in.

Early reviews are calling it one of the year's best horror films. We sat down with Ejiofor, Reinsve, and Parsons to find out how you build a world out of an internet myth—and make audiences afraid of an empty room.

Backrooms comes to theaters on May 29th nationwide.