YouTube-led horror hits Backrooms and Obsession drive record box office returns

Low-budget horror films made by YouTube creators are becoming some of the year’s biggest box office surprises, with A24’s Backrooms and Curry Barker’s Obsession signaling a new path from internet fame to mainstream film success. According to Bloomberg, the trend is strong enough that low-budget horror from YouTubers is now outperforming expectations usually reserved for far bigger studio releases.

The clearest example is Backrooms, based on the popular YouTube series created by 20-year-old Kane Parsons. Bloomberg reported that the film debuted to $81.4 million at the U.S. and Canada box office, a record opening for distributor A24. That figure is striking not just because of the revenue, but because the movie reportedly cost only around $14 million to make, giving it the kind of opening that can reshape how independent horror projects are financed and marketed.

Parsons’s rise reflects how YouTube has become a talent pipeline for feature filmmaking. As reported by The West, he first drew attention as a high schooler with a horror series built around the internet legend of the Backrooms, an eerie extra-dimensional maze of empty office space inhabited by hostile entities. A24 then brought him on to adapt the concept for the big screen, pairing him with Oscar nominees Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve. The studio’s gamble appears to have paid off, at least in its opening weekend.

Obsession shows the same pattern from a different angle. The West reported that director Curry Barker made the film on a tiny $1 million budget, and it has since earned more than $133 million worldwide. ComicBook said the movie opened with $17 million in its first weekend and reached roughly $75 million worldwide within two weeks, making it one of the year’s most profitable films relative to cost. The film’s momentum has helped push Barker into the same conversation as Parsons: creators who built audiences online and then brought that fan base into theaters.

Taken together, the two films point to a larger shift in how horror is being made and sold. Horror has long been one of the most efficient genres for studios and independents, because relatively small budgets can still produce major returns. What is different now is that YouTube creators are arriving with built-in audiences, distinctive visual styles, and stories already tested online, reducing some of the risk that comes with original theatrical releases.

That is why the success of Backrooms and Obsession matters beyond one weekend’s box office. If their numbers hold, more studios may look to YouTubers as a reliable source of low-cost, high-interest horror projects. For audiences, it means the internet’s most influential storytellers may increasingly shape what reaches movie theaters next.