Backrooms Is Officially Coming to HBO Max in September
Backrooms officially has a streaming release date.
The breakout horror movie directed by 21-year-old-Kane Parsons is coming to HBO Max on Friday, September 25. It will debut on HBO linear channels the following day at 8pm ET.
The streaming release comes just under four months after Backrooms was initially released in theaters, where it dominated the box office. It grossed over $80 million in its opening weekend and quickly become A24’s highest-grossing movie of all time. It finished its theatrical run at just shy of $400 million globally, and remains one of the highest-grossing movies of the year so far.
Toward the end of its stint in theaters, Backrooms received became available to watch in extended “Everything Must Go” screenings, featuring over 15 minutes of extra footage in the style of Parsons’ original YouTube series. That extra footage is already available to watch on YouTube for free, and it's unclear whether it'll be added to HBO Max in any capacity.
For now, Backrooms is available to rent or buy digitally from platforms like Prime Video. A spread of 4K Blu-rays with "over three hours of special features" are also available to buy from the A24 Shop.
We were pretty big fans of Backrooms, with critic Lex Briscuso describing it as “a truly terrifying cinematic rabbit hole” in her 8/10 review for IGN. It's one of our best-reviewed movies of the year so far, and generally currently sits at an 87% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
All in all, it should come as no surprise that there are already talks of a potential sequel, though Parsons has also expressed his interest in adapting the iconic 2007 Valve game, Portal. Other creepypasta-inspired movies have also been getting the green light since the Backrooms success, most notably a Siren Head movie helmed by Weapons' and the upcoming Resident Evil movie's director, Zach Cregger.
Blythe (she/her) is an Audience Development Coordinator at IGN who, when she isn't following streaming news, spends way too much time in character customization screens and tracking down collectibles.