Backrooms film spurs crowdsourced map of Korea's liminal spaces

The horror film "Backrooms" drew nearly 400,000 admissions in its opening week in Korea and has since inspired a crowdsourced project to catalog the peninsula's eerily vacant liminal spaces, The Korea Times reported.

The film's success underscores the widening cultural reach of liminal horror — a subgenre built on the unease of familiar spaces stripped of people — which first surged online during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns.

"Backrooms" was directed by Kane Parsons, 20, and is based on his YouTube miniseries of the same name. The film opened in Korean theaters May 27 and climbed to No. 2 at the box office in its first week, according to The Korea Times.

Following the film's release, users began submitting locations to a crowdsourced "Backrooms Map" that catalogs liminal spaces across Korea. The map, which holds about 100 entries, vets each submission before officially adding it and classifies locations by safety, accessibility and fear and liminality factors, The Korea Times reported.

Among the spaces cataloged are undeveloped subway sections and unoccupied buildings — places that evoke the psychological discomfort of environments at once familiar and devoid of people.

The Backrooms concept traces to 2019, when an image depicting a bare, fluorescent-lit corridor appeared on an anonymous online image board and gradually spread across the internet. The liminal horror subgenre then exploded in popularity during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns, when isolation made empty, transitional spaces resonate with a global audience.

The genre taps into anxieties particular to younger audiences raised in dense urban environments, reflecting disquiet about hyperconnected city living and the uncanny feeling of recognizable spaces left vacant.

The Backrooms Map continues to accept user submissions, with each entry passing a vetting process before it is added to the growing catalog of Korea's liminal spaces.