Backrooms actor Chiwetel Ejiofor was surprised to find out the 30,000 square foot set is the first of its kind: ‘I thought that somewhere it had been built before’

We’re just over a week away from the release of A24’s Backrooms film, and while horror fans have been eating particularly well so far this year, this one’s really for the horror game players as director Kane Parsons seeks to adapt a long running and much loved creepypasta.

The bar’s pretty high considering just how much unique and interesting Backrooms media already exists online, but—without getting my hopes up too high—it seems as if Parsons has stepped up to the task, not least by creating a gigantic set that surprised even the actors.

“I thought the set was amazing and I was very late to understanding that this was the first physical set,” actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, known for his roles in The Martian, 12 Years a Slave, and Love Actually, explained in an interview with DiscussingFilm. “I thought, when I watched all the shorts, I thought that somewhere, it had been built before. I didn’t really understand he had created all of it.”

I don’t blame Ejiofor, the various Backrooms shorts and even some games you come across look eerily real. So much so that it can be easy to believe the liminal space and endless tunnels could be located somewhere. It all probably stems from the fact that the inspiration behind it all is, in fact, a real place, located in a Wisconsin Hobbytown Oshkosh.

But the set for the Backrooms film is much larger than its real life counterpart. Parsons ended up creating a set that spanned 30,000 square feet. It was so expansive that “some people were getting lost” Parsons explained in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

“Once I got hip to that I was really excited,” Ejiofor added. “Also because [Kane Parsons] was so excited. Kane was buzzing being in the space. So it was great. Yes it was vast and trying to find your way through it was complicated, but to have a visceral tactile set like that was great.”