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.
GATEWAY INTO GENERATIONAL ANXIETIESMovies 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.
