Loved 'Backrooms'? Here're 5 More Movies Set In Liminal Spaces, Ranked by IMDb

Backrooms has become a genuine phenomenon, introducing us to a new kind of fear – the dread of empty, infinite spaces that look almost real yet somehow feel wrong.

However, cinema has explored this theme long before Backrooms emerged. Here are five of the best movies set in similarly surreal, oppressive, and claustrophobic environments.

5. 'Skinamarink', 2022

IMDb Score: 4.7/10

One night, siblings Kevin and Kaylee discover that their father has vanished, the windows and doors have disappeared, and their home now feels like the most dangerous place on Earth.

While cartoons play on the television, the darkness slowly reshapes the space. Rooms swap places, objects disappear, and time slows down. The children wander the house and begin to resemble ghosts.

Filmed by Kyle Edward Ball for just $15,000 in his parents' home, the movie was inspired by social media users' stories about recurring childhood nightmares.

4. 'Hotel', 2004

IMDb Score: 5.6/10

Irene starts working as a receptionist at an Alpine hotel where her predecessor disappeared without a trace. The only thing left behind by the young woman is a pair of glasses, which Irene tries on during her first day.

Her colleagues avoid discussing the incident, and management responds to questions about the missing employee with cold indifference. In the evenings, Irene wanders the deserted corridors in search of answers.

In Jessica Hausner's movie, the hotel and the surrounding forest form a liminal labyrinth where it is impossible to distinguish between architecture and nature, myth and reality.

3. 'Beyond the Black Rainbow', 2010

IMDb Score: 5.9/10

At a retro-futuristic institute, Dr. Barry Nyle keeps young Elena under constant surveillance and subjects her to daily experiments designed to suppress her telepathic abilities.

Tired of the sterile white rooms and neon-lit corridors, Elena decides to run away.

The debut film from Panos Cosmatos, better known for Mandy, exists somewhere at the intersection of science fiction and psychedelic horror. Beyond the Black Rainbow is a hallucinatory flick filled with cold, vast spaces open to interpretation.

2. 'Hotel Monterey', 1973

IMDb Score: 6.1/10

Chantal Akerman's feature debut is widely regarded as a seminal work of structural film. While it is difficult to classify this silent movie as horror, viewers will likely feel a lingering sense of unease while watching it.

The filmmaker explores the space, searching for traces of human presence, and finds a few: a rumpled bed, a pillow propped against the wall, and an elevator door closing behind someone. Though there is life in the hotel, we are mostly left to study empty corridors.

A hotel, already a liminal space where no one stays long, becomes more detached from reality once the guests vanish from its hallways. A nearly motionless camera captures the vacant interiors until an occasional guest suddenly appears in the frame and stares directly into the lens.

1. 'Pulse', 2001

IMDb Score: 6.6/10

Michi and her friends find a strange photograph on the computer of a recently deceased colleague. Meanwhile, Ryosuke Kawashima, a student trying to figure out how the internet works, receives an anonymous invitation to a website where he can supposedly see ghosts.

Soon, people begin to vanish one by one, and Tokyo, once teeming with life, gradually empties out.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Pulse foresaw the anxieties of the digital age back in 2004. The internet emerges as a sinister, otherworldly force with the power to dissolve physical boundaries and claim human lives.