Backrooms director says Portal 2 is the "biggest inspiration" for new A24 horror movie
Director Kane Parsons says Portal 2 serves as the biggest inspiration for the upcoming horror movie based on his viral YouTube series of the same name.
"Portal would be the earliest influence," Parsons said in an interview with Letterboxd. "It's like the strongest influence over, like, everything I've done in my entire life. It's a two-game series. So, if anything, I would say Portal 2 is the bigger inspiration for me... It's inherently comedic and absurd, and that’s what I like about it. So many bleak creative choices come from an inherent humour."
Portal is a first-person puzzle game that first debuted in 2007. Portal 2 was released in 2011. In both games, you play as a test subject trapped in the Aperture Science Laboratory, taunted as you complete puzzles by an evil (but very funny) computer overseer. The lab seems to be a death trap with no way to escape – until you start finding hidden spaces where you're not "supposed" to go.
Latest Videos From
You can definitely see the influence on Parsons' viral YouTube series, which centers on a '90s company called The Complex, which is essentially a web of liminal spaces where people go missing after being pulled in.
"The general set construction of the Portal games has been in my brain for so long. I frequently have dreams where I’m just in the [game]," he continued. "By the second game, [the environment] is rotting and totally falling apart but it's vast. It feels like an eternal indoors that goes on in all directions that is just absurd in its scope. It’s very similar to Backrooms on that front. You can probably tell [those games are] special to me because I won’t stop rambling about them." You can check out the full interview below.
Backrooms Director Kane Parsons Breaks Down His Inspirations - YouTube
Watch On
Directed by Parsons, the movie sees a therapist (Renate Reinsve) venture into an otherworldly dimension in search of her missing patient (Chiwetel Ejiofor). The cast includes Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, Lukita Maxwell, and Avan Jogia. The screenplay was penned by Westworld writers Robert Patino and Will Soodik.
Backrooms hits theaters on May 29. For more scares, check out our list of upcoming horror movies.
Sign up for the Total Film Newsletter
Lauren Milici is a Senior Entertainment Writer for GamesRadar+ based in New York City. She previously reported on breaking news for The Independent's Indy100 and created TV and film listicles for Ranker. Her work has been published in Fandom, Nerdist, Paste Magazine, Vulture, PopSugar, Fangoria, and more.
View MoreYou must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
Logout LATEST ARTICLES
1Valve just hiked the 1TB Steam Deck OLED to just under $1,000 - 2"Of course" the director of Pragmata would love a sequel, but he's "not the only one who decides"
- 3Destiny 2 community lead thanks "everyone who has reached out" as Bungie ends the game after 9 years
- 4Generative AI finally sends Hideo Kojima into space in new short film with Death Stranding partner Nicolas Winding Refn
- 5First X-Men '97 season 2 trailer sees the mutants battle Apocalypse across space and time