The way Hollywood is taking shape these days is getting pretty trippy. Only two highlighted trends are in view at the moment: the interminably divisive debate over AI and the two buzziest internet-borne movies taking over modern audiences. Hollywood is confronting its traditional ways of filmmaking, injecting fresh steroids to please the cinegoers.
Backrooms and Obsession come from two internet-based filmmakers. Backrooms is brought by Kane Parsons, whose viral horror shorts on YouTube became a sensation within days. A then 16-year-old YouTuber is now the youngest filmmaker ever to make a movie for A24. And of course, the familiarity and nostalgia factors mostly win!
Similarly, Obsession is directed by Curry Barker, who is best known for his sketch-comedy YouTube channel. The reason it became an instant hit is that the low-budget horror movie tapped into the contemporary anxieties of modern moviegoers.
The rise of YouTubers in cinema was strikingly noticeable last year, but only a few achieved the level of engagement that Backrooms and Obsession are enjoying this year. Bring Her Back from the Philippou brothers gained a 79% audience score as compared to the 89% critics' score. Together, by Michael Shanks, gained a 76% audience score as compared to a 90% critics' score.
I have mentioned previously that Gen Zs are reviving cinemas as they prefer going to theatres, setting their phones aside for some time, and taking a break from their screen lives, eventually making their cinemagoing experience an 'event.' This is exactly why filmmakers have reformulated their strategies to keep these digitally fluent viewers coming back for more.
Gen Z and Millennials are tired of screens and have had enough of their 'confined' lives during the pandemic. They want to break free and go untethered from their mundane routine to connect with reality, real friends, and real spaces. Variety shared some interesting facts about the demographics of these filmgoers: Backrooms had 85% of the audience under the age of 35, and 50% were 25 or younger, while Obsession initially attracted 75% of moviegoers between 18 and 35 years old.
These YouTubers know their audience more than the traditional Hollywood filmmakers who have been working in the industry for years. The comments sections on their YouTube videos have all the feedback they needed for a film to work. The real sauce is the expressions that they read each day; for example, in the Backrooms comments section, the very comment, "You can feel the confusion and anxiety setting in the deeper he goes." 'I am not supposed to be here' is the living laboratory of audience psychology and how they perceive fear, anxiety, love, and obsessions in real time.
Comments like these are not just expressions of emotions; they are aerated impressions of what viewers are seeking from the experience itself. The unsettling feeling of being trapped somewhere, even if it is in liminal spaces or an inescapable bounded space of someone's wishes, is the precise psychological state that defies logic.
Speaking of defied logic, it is the internet generation that is wooed by such content that doesn't make sense at all. They are more attracted to the inexplicable nature of things and are drawn into them more, rather than the films that have a definitive closure. Endings that incite them to stay fixated over them for days, debating interpretations, sometimes forming theories out of them to find certain answers on their own, are the real twist hacked by these YouTubers-turned-directors, in my opinion, at least.
The social-media-native audience stays occupied with things that don't make sense. An example of a film that doesn't fully make sense but involves a plethora of emotions and proved successful is Donnie Darko (2001), which became a cult phenomenon. Backrooms does not aim to find answers; it is confronting an environment that resists explanations but delves into human emotions, their memories, and the distortion of reality as well. Obsession also doesn't completely resolve the matter of love and intimacy; it haunts the viewers with the thought of love and possession, and when they actually start.
Probably the crowd-pulling horrors this year understood internet culture well. The audiences do not want mere stories; they want experiences to continue beyond screens. From this point onwards, directors must unlearn old methods and know that present-day spectators possess an unparalleled attention to detail.
Emotional cynosure is mandatory now and leaves viewers with lingering questions or unresolved tensions that should remain in their imagination until a potential sequel arrives, much like the recently announced Backrooms 2, which is already in development following the original film's strong box office performance.
Echoes is an opinion column on film and television from the perspective of a writer based in Pakistan.