‘Backrooms’ Director Kane Parsons Reveals the Popular Game He Dreams of Turning Into a Movie

Backrooms director Kane Parsons may have just released one of the most talked-about horror movies of the year, but he is already thinking about another dream project. According to a recent profile by The New York Times, the 20-year-old filmmaker has his sights set on bringing the popular video game Portal to the big screen.

Parsons, who became a viral sensation after creating The Backrooms series on YouTube as a teenager, has quickly become one of the most exciting young names in horror. His original Backrooms short exploded online when he was just 16 years old. The found-footage horror video followed a man trapped inside an endless maze of strange yellow hallways and unsettling empty spaces. The series gained millions of views and eventually caught the attention of A24.

The studio moved quickly, signing Parsons to direct a feature-length adaptation of Backrooms when he was only 17. That made him the youngest director in A24’s history. After several years of development, the film finally arrived with Oscar-nominated actors Renate Reinsve and Chiwetel Ejiofor leading the cast.

Speaking to The New York Times, Parsons admitted that his age has always been part of the discussion throughout his career.

“Age has never not been part of the conversation with me,” he said.

Before filming Backrooms, Parsons worried that people might not take him seriously because of how young he was. At the same time, he wanted to stay true to the audience that discovered his work online.

The filmmaker also revealed that his creative influences come from more than just movies. In fact, Parsons said his style has been heavily shaped by internet storytelling and video games. Among those influences are two classic games from Valve: Portal and Half-Life.

The most surprising revelation from the interview was that Parsons would love to adapt Portal into a movie someday. According to the report, he is actively looking into whether such a project could actually happen and is approaching the idea with what the article describes as “a lot of curiosity.”

For those unfamiliar with Portal, it is one of the most acclaimed puzzle games ever made. Released by Valve in 2007, the game puts players in the role of a test subject named Chell, who is trapped inside a futuristic research facility called Aperture Science.

Using a device known as the Portal Gun, players can create linked portals on walls, floors, and ceilings. One portal serves as an entrance while the other acts as an exit, allowing players to instantly travel between locations. The game combines physics-based puzzles with dark humor and a mysterious story.

Portal is also famous for its AI antagonist, GLaDOS, a sarcastic and manipulative artificial intelligence that oversees the facility’s experiments. As the story progresses, players uncover secrets about Aperture Science while trying to escape GLaDOS’s control.

Although Portal is primarily known as a puzzle game, its isolated environments, strange atmosphere, and underlying psychological themes share some similarities with Backrooms. Both stories place characters inside unfamiliar spaces where reality feels distorted and danger is never far away.

For now, Parsons is focused on the release of Backrooms. However, his comments suggest that adapting Portal remains a serious ambition. Given how successfully he transformed a viral internet horror series into a feature film, many fans are already curious about what his version of Valve’s beloved game might look like on the big screen.

Whether or not the project ever becomes reality remains to be seen, but one thing is clear: Kane Parsons is already thinking about what comes next after Backrooms.

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