Commentary: To understand Gen Z, look not to Hollywood but to indie horror films
Backrooms and Obsession turn Gen Z insecurities into sources of horror, says undergraduate Zara Waseem.
This image released by A24 shows Chiwetel Ejiofor in a scene from “Backrooms.” (A24 via AP)
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SINGAPORE: “POV: You’re in the Backrooms.” So reads the caption on a trending genre of TikTok videos, where users film themselves in empty malls, eerie corridors and other foreboding spaces.
These videos riff off psychological horror film Backrooms. Directed by Kane Parsons, who turned 21 in June, it has earned more than US$380 million globally, and is indie studio A24’s highest-grossing film to date.
In Backrooms, characters discover a labyrinth of hallways hidden within a nondescript furniture store. The backrooms are full of unnerving and unexplained features – piled up detritus, off-kilter angles and suffocating passageways. Beyond the sporadic gore and jump scares, it is the atmospheric quality of the horror that unsettles viewers to the core.
Backrooms is a quintessential Gen Z film because it captures an uncanny, existential sense of dread and draws viewers into a larger online world.
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GATEWAY INTO GENERATIONAL ANXIETIES
Movies have long been a gateway into the minds and anxieties of each generation. For Gen X, Fast Times At Ridgemont High depicted teenagers navigating relationships and school in the 80s, all while dealing with their minimum-wage jobs. Though such a story is relatable to all, it broke new ground for teen comedies with its authentic and grounded portrayal of youths.
For millennials, movies like Superbad or Mean Girls were humorous takes on the high school experience. They explored peer dynamics before the era of social media, and laid bare the emptiness of chasing popularity over friendship.
While coming-of-age movies are standard fare for previous generations, few obvious equivalents come to mind for Gen Z. Its defining stories may instead be coming from the horror genre.
Two such films have dominated box offices: Backrooms and Obsession. Both turn Gen Z insecurities into sources of horror.
Obsession, directed by 26-year-old Curry Barker, follows a young man with unrequited feelings for his co-worker. He makes a wish that she would love him “more than anyone else in the world”, without working hard to achieve such a relationship.
While the story plays out like a traditional horror movie, it spotlights Gen Z’s difficulties with communicating and being vulnerable, leading some to crave a fantasy they deem safe for themselves.
Meanwhile, the horrific entities and environment in Backrooms are glitched copies of things and places in real life. They remind viewers of the increasingly blurred lines between real and fake, amid the rise of AI hallucinations and fears of artificial intelligence supplanting jobs and human creativity.
Gen Z are wary of the AI agenda for the future. This is exemplified by university students booing AI-focused graduation speeches at schools like the University of Arizona and University of Central Florida. The fact that characters get lured into the backrooms and become unwilling to leave can be read as a warning against getting attached to what’s not real.
AN EXPERIENCE THAT EXTENDS PAST CINEMAS
Backrooms represents not only Gen Z fears, but the sprawling online communities they participate in.
It began with a 2019 post on online forum 4chan – a haunting photo of a fluorescent-lit, office-like space. Users built on this world by writing stories, adding floors and imagining dangerous entities that roam the hallways. This includes Parsons, who in 2022 created “found footage” of the backrooms and uploaded them to YouTube.
Fans of Parsons’ YouTube series would be well-versed in the world of Backrooms, and would be apt to watch video essays about the movie and debate it online. But for the uninitiated who watched the movie and want more, there are TikTok rabbit holes, Reddit theories, fan edits and even Roblox game recreations to sink into.
For me and my friends, the Backrooms craze led us to watch the movie in the middle of the night in an empty mall. We found the cinema full, with other midnight showings booked almost at capacity everywhere we looked. This shows the lengths Gen Z would go to be a part of such a film – and challenges current narratives that cinema is dead.
A study by US ticketing company Fandango found Gen Z to be the most active movie-going demographic. In 2025, 87 per cent of Gen Zers saw at least one movie, higher than the average of 76 per cent for American adults. The study also found that Gen Z visit the cinema as a social activity, as opposed to millennials who view it as an escape from their daily routine.
GEN ZERS NOW HOLD THE CAMERA
Film studios have always tried to relate to a younger audience but this doesn’t always translate well, given the gap between those creating the movie and those watching it.
Shows like Never Have I Ever or Ms Marvel offer great entertainment, but the dialogue is written by older adults attempting to emulate the way Gen Z speaks. This takes away from the relatability of characters, often in cringeworthy ways.
But Hollywood has handed Gen Zers the camera, to much commercial success and critical acclaim.
Reality is scary for every generation, and gore and monsters will remain classic horror tropes. But Backrooms reflects Gen Z’s unease and offers audiences an experience that extends past the cinema. Films like it capture the generation more accurately than the conventional blockbuster.
Zara Waseem was an intern on the commentary team at CNA Digital.
Source: CNA/zw(el)
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