If the internet rumor mill is to be believed, there’s no way that 20-year-old Kane Parsons actually directed his captivating debut feature, “Backrooms.” Parsons, whose film is a feature-length adaptation of his liminal horror YouTube series by the same name, is simply too young, commenters have wagered. Despite creating an extensive mythology for the series, taking an interest in the online fascination with liminal spaces — photographs of stores or buildings made eerie by their unnatural emptiness — Parsons must have deferred to a more experienced person on set. No matter that Parsons trained himself on the animation program Blender as a teenager and released the first episode of the “Backrooms” series at 16, with 23 more installments (including a 45-minute-long edition) to follow. Someone that young couldn’t have the skill, much less know enough about life, to direct an intriguing studio film capably. Right?
It’s easy to mistake youth for inexperience. A fair number of teenagers spend their days in school and their evenings doing homework, with their weekends largely consumed by hobbies or trying to get a brief bit of respite from the grueling demands of high school life. The average teenager has never left the country or experienced heartbreak any more acute than the burn of their first breakup, soon to be forgotten by a multitude of other casual flings and serious partners. Most Americans don’t have the opportunity to see or understand much of the world until they step into it for themselves, and even then, the transition is slow. Saving money requires a job, which in turn demands hours invested in school or work, often both at the same time. When you’re young, knowledge comes fast but builds gradually — or, at least that was the case before the internet came around.
