‘Backrooms’ Named the Term, But Cinema Built the Liminal Space

The internet has a new favorite horror term, and it comes straight from the corridors of Backrooms. The film, now streaming on HBO Max, follows Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve through fluorescent-lit office spaces that defy physics and logic, functioning as dreamlike manifestations of the mind. The spaces are so unsettling that critics have started calling them what they are: liminal.

Liminal spaces sit between categories. They are neither here nor there, neither safe nor dangerous, and that ambiguity is the whole point. A YouTuber-turned-director named Kane Parsons built his career on this tension, and his work prompted comparisons to David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick, directors who mastered the genre decades earlier.

Now, a new list has surfaced, cataloguing the creepiest liminal spaces in cinema history. The list spans classics like The Shining and Twin Peaks alongside lesser-known oddities like Relaxer. Here is the rundown:

1. Stalker — Andrei Tarkovsky’s Zone is a surreal wasteland cordoned off by the government, where wish-granting rooms and philosophical debates exist in a colorless, muddy reality.
2. Twin Peaks — The Red Room, a.k.a. the Waiting Room or the Black Lodge, with its chevron floor and luxe curtains, is a portal to other dimensions, explained by nobody.
3. Annihilation — Alex Garland’s Shimmer is a quarantine zone filled with mutant plants and predatory animals, a psychological journey ending with a terrifying mirror.
4. I’m Thinking of Ending Things — Charlie Kaufman’s dream-logic film about a fractured relationship is like Meet the Parents meets Stalker.
5. The Shining — Stanley Kubrick’s hotel is a mosaic of purgatories, from Room 237 to the hedge maze, forming what may be the scariest movie ever made.
6. The Truman Show — Jim Carrey’s character lives in a reality TV prison until he walks through the door to freedom, questioning the nature of reality itself.
7. Relaxer — Joel Potrykus traps his protagonist Abbie on a couch for so long that he merges with the furniture, drinking soda and sweat while Y2K happens outside.
8. Vivarium — Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots star in a film about a couple trapped in a suburban housing development that refuses to let them leave.

The list is a strange mix, and that is the charm. It pairs Kubrick’s meticulous horror with a film about a man becoming one with a couch. The comparison between Backrooms and these classics is fair. All of them share the same quality: they are places that feel wrong, where the rules shift mid-scene and the viewer is left wondering what exactly is being shown.

“Don’t question why, just watch and immerse yourself in the unreal sensations.”

That line applies to every entry. The list is a celebration of discomfort, and it argues that the best horror is not the jump scare but the persistent unease. Backrooms arrived at the term “liminal space,” but cinema has been using the idea for generations. The list is a reminder that the most unsettling places are the ones that refuse to settle down.

Source material: “‘Backrooms,’ ‘The Shining’ and Beyond: The Creepiest Liminal Spaces in Movies,” Decider.

Backrooms · cinema · horror · Kane Parsons · liminal space