Dead malls. Abandoned cubicles. Forgotten industrial zones. To mark the release of Kane Parsons’ A24 film The Backrooms, Koktails uncovers seven haunting liminal spaces around Bangkok.

Bangkok’s cinemas have been bustling this past week as horror fans pack screenings for A24’s latest offering, Backrooms (2026). While the film – helmed by 20-year-old director Kane Parsons – is a direct expansion of the viral YouTube web series, the story’s roots run much deeper. It all began on 4chan in 2019, where a single, unsettling photograph of a vacant, yellow-lit office space triggered a wave of creepypastas and internet lore, eventually paving the way for this major theatrical release. 

Now standing as A24’s highest-grossing film with over $212 million (~THB 6.9 billion) worldwide, the movie is part of a broader shift. Together with Curry Barker’s smash hit Obsession (2026), it has critics raving about a new wave of outsider talent. The commercial successes prove that given the right budget, digital-native creators can match the box-office muscle of traditional studios. But most of all, it’s their rebellious, DIY ethos that draws audiences in, offering an uncompromised alternative to formulaic Hollywood output.

What Is Backrooms About?

Although Kane Parsons didn’t create the Backrooms concept, he is arguably the one who gave it its most distinct and compelling shape through his viral YouTube project. 

In his feature directorial debut, the story centres on Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a dissatisfied furniture store owner who dreads returning home to his wife. Clark is actually a failed architect, clinging to the delusional belief that he still is one just to maintain a shred of self-worth. In an effort to break him out of his relentless self-pity, his therapist, Mary (Renate Reinsve), coaxes him into joining a therapeutic role-play session. 

However, Mary is battling her own demons: deep-seated trauma from a childhood where her agoraphobic mother (Krista Kosonen) locked her away from the outside world. The narrative takes a surreal turn inside Clark’s furniture store, which hides a portal to an extradimensional hell where literal monsters lurk and characters are forced to confront their deepest psychological fears.

Should You Watch Backrooms?

In short, absolutely. It’s easy to be sceptical about whether an internet-lore phenomenon defined mostly by its eerie aesthetic could offer any real narrative substance. Still, Backrooms delivers philosophical depth that commands attention throughout its two-hour duration. Thematically, the film tackles the horror of mimicry. Rather than transporting audiences to a completely alien realm, the Backrooms manifest as a decayed, unrecognisable extension of Clark’s furniture store.

The film brilliantly utilises “no-clipping” – the classic video game glitch foundational to the original creepypasta – where physical geometry phases into itself. Floors and walls constantly shift to generate corrupted, hollow reproductions of reality. This architectural mimicry serves as a psychological mirror for Clark and Mary, reflecting their desperate efforts to validate themselves as professionals. When you fail to become who you were meant to be, you merely become a degraded copy of your unrealised self.

What Are Liminal Spaces?

The concept of liminal spaces is far from new. It traces back to the early 20th-century work of French ethnographer Arnold van Gennep regarding rites of passage. Van Gennep divided these rites into three distinct phases, with the middle stage being the liminal (or liminaire) period – a transitional state where an individual hovers between their old status and a new one, akin to crossing a threshold. 

While his original theory focused on psychological and social transitions rather than architectural pathways, this profound sense of in-betweenness and transitoriness has deeply resonated with modern theorists, providing material for contemporary cultural concepts.

There is a distinct emotional weight to these transitory spaces, evoking what Sigmund Freud called the Unheimlich – the uncanny. It’s that eerie feeling born from encountering something intimately familiar, yet unnervingly alien. In psychoanalytical terms, this manifests as the return of the repressed. The film channels this dread, trapping Clark and Mary in an environment where their unresolved baggage and personal failures materialise right before their eyes.

In his work, the late theorist Mark Fisher contrasts the eerie with the weird: while the weird evokes the unsettling feeling of something that does not belong, the eerie centres on a failure of either presence or absence. For instance, what looks from a distance like an ordinary chair might actually be too simple, suggesting that an object is imbued with an excessive, unseen significance. This is precisely what constitutes the eerieness of abandoned landscapes and dead buildings: the haunting suspicion that an invisible agency is pulling the strings.

For anthropologist Marc Augé, these liminal environments are what he calls “non-places.” They are spaces built for pure utility – like airports, highways and sprawling malls – where people coexist temporarily but lack any meaningful connection to a shared history or cultural identity. It is the difference between a sterile corporate headquarters and the bustling, family-run shops of Yaowarat, where every storefront is steeped in local memory.

While the Backrooms are a quintessential liminal space, they represent just one specific topological aesthetic among many. Not all liminal zones look like endless yellow hallways. Koktail has gathered seven places around Bangkok that embody this uncanny phenomenon. It is worth remembering that liminal spaces don’t simply exist; rather, they present themselves to us, materialising as if out of thin air.

1/7 New World Department Store

Once a beacon of luxury, the New World Department Store stands today as a monument to a lost future. Envisioned by developer Kaew Pooktuanthong – who also ran Kaew Fah Plaza – the mall was plagued by setbacks from the start, resulting in a gruelling legal battle with the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration over seven illegally constructed storeys. The defiance ended in tragedy in 2004 when the eighth floor collapsed, causing a hospital fatality and forcing the building’s permanent closure.

The ruin found unexpected global fame in the early 2010s when its flooded basement transformed into a surreal, accidental sanctuary for koi and catfish. Though the fish are gone, this skeleton of a building has found a second life as a thriving art hub, proving it is far more than just an eyesore that is too costly to demolish. Most recently, Bangkok Design Week 2026 revived the space for exhibitions rooted in Bang Lamphu’s history, highlighted by Wit Pimkanchanapong’s striking Myarab kinetic sculpture.

2/7 Sathorn Unique Tower (aka Ghost Tower)

Towering over the Chao Phraya River like a derelict monument to a bygone financial boom, the Sathorn Unique has now been christened as Bangkok’s “Ghost Tower”. Born from the ambitious optimism of the early 1990s, the ultra-luxury residential skyscraper was nearly complete when the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis abruptly froze its fate. Left to weather the tropical elements, the skyscraper’s half-finished neo-Grecian columns and circular balconies transformed a symbol of modern prosperity into that of a sudden economic eclipse.

Over the decades, the abandoned tower shifted from a financial failure into an urban legend. Today, the sealed ruin sits in legal and structural limbo, casting shadows over historic temples and other touristy sites. It’s a haunting, indelible mark on the Bangkok skyline, a massive concrete skeleton trapped between an optimistic future that never arrived and a bustling city that grew up around it.

3/7 Lub d Bangkok Chinatown

Just a hop from the street-food chaos of Yaowarat Road and right next to Sam Yot station, Lub d Bangkok Chinatown is a retro-chic hotel-hostel hybrid that makes city exploring a breeze. But don’t get too comfortable – once you step away from the lively common areas, the vibe shifts entirely. The hallways have this eerie, liminal energy that will instantly make you look around for Twin Peaks’ Red Room curtains and a dancing dwarf. Lynchian vibes aside, it’s the absolute perfect spot for eating your way through the old city.

4/7 The Palladium World Shopping Mall

Originally built to rival nearby wholesale hubs, this complex struggled for years before a 2011 rebrand turned it into The Palladium World Shopping Mall. Today, it is considered a textbook example of a “dead mall”, offering an eerie yet peaceful escape from the cityscape outside. Step past its bright neon facade and the street chaos instantly vanishes into a silent interior where lights hum softly over shuttered storefronts. It’s a beautifully surreal, time-paused pocket of Bangkok that now lives a double life as a niche wholesale haven for silver and gemstones.

5/7 Eastin Lakeside Hotel

Built in the 1990s by Bangkok Land to cash in on the popularity of IMPACT Muang Thong Thani, this lakeside Nonthaburi hotel ended up abandoned for decades after the 1997 economic crash. Fast forward to today, and Bangkok Land CEO Paul Kanjanapas has completely rewritten its “ghost status” narrative. Instead of knocking it down, he recycled the raw concrete bones of the old hotel to create The Lake Club – a super trendy, pet-friendly community space packed with cafes, bars, and art pop-ups… though a sense of liminality is arguably still there.

6/7 Krung Thep Aphiwat Central Terminal

Some know it as Bang Sue Grand Station, others as Krung Thep Aphiwat Central Terminal, largely because it is still caught in the slow process of rebranding. As Southeast Asia’s largest railway station, this cavernous, 274,192-square-meter behemoth features 26 platforms built for a massive future high-speed network; yet, when empty, it transforms into a platform where trains arrive only to head nowhere. With its confusing identity crisis, the station barely feels real on paper, existing as a true, fluorescent-lit liminal space. Put simply, Krung Thep Aphiwat Central Terminal is sometimes there – and sometimes not.

7/7 The Former Tobacco Factory 5 at Benjakitti Park

Led by the city and local architects, a recent renovation split this industrial relic into two distinct worlds: the eco-focused Benjakitti Museum and a massive public sports hub inside Tobacco Factory 5. Today, locals shoot hoops and play badminton beneath a cut-out roof where the park’s wild greenery spills straight into the building. Yet, no amount of modern athletic gear can completely erase its past; the cavernous, bare concrete skeleton and soaring warehouse ceilings ensure a ghostly, liminal energy still haunts the edges of the space – spooky but in an inviting way!