Endless yellow corridors started as an internet meme - now it's a Hollywood horror film

Here is the latest breaking news from around the world: Endless yellow corridors started as an internet meme - now it's a Hollywood horror film7 minutes ago Share Save Add as preferred on GoogleAlex TaylorCulture reporterA24British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as Clark, exploring the 'liminal space' halls of the BackroomsA movie poster showing a sheet of mono-yellow coloured wallpaper might typically wash over your head. It's instantly recognisable to millions - and inspires dread. This is Hollywood's latest horror film - Backrooms - and it knows its audience: one more drawn to whispered horror than list names, monsters and gore.

Backrooms are essentially disturbing, abandoned rooms with seemingly no end in sight. It could be an empty office block, a hallway or a corridor - unsettling between-zones. The concept came about in 2019, when anonymous users on message board 4chan were asked to "post disquieting images that just feel 'off'.

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"A24A24's teaser poster for the film adaptation, relying on recognition of the Backrooms' mono-yellow wallpaperOne user posted an image of an abandoned office space, with mustard yellow wallpaper and fluorescent lighting. The post read: "If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the Backrooms, where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in. "The post continued: "God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you.

"4chanThe original image of the Backrooms uploaded to 4chan in 2019. It has since been sourced to a real furniture store in the US state of WisconsinThe concept then grew into a hugely popular YouTube mini-series, with creator Kane Parsons, then 16, at the helm. Parsons used a CGI programme called Blender to create environments beyond his budget.

Today, the series boasts more than 200m views. It proved so captivating that Hollywood studio powerhouse A24 - which is behind Oscar-nominated horror The Substance - enlisted Parsons, now 20, for a film adaptation, which was released on Friday . Parsons, now A24's youngest ever director, has one solemn tip for survival in the Backrooms: "Make peace with it before anything else, because I don't like to give false optimism.

"His task in 2023 was clear: to drag this isolating hellscape kicking and screaming onto the big screen, and in a way that resembles his YouTube series. He tells me that what excited him most about the project was using a Hollywood budget to dive deeper and bring a "real physicality" to ensure the film feels "distinct from the YouTube series".

The development has drawn wide international attention, with diplomatic circles watching closely.