From Backrooms to SCP: How Internet Horror Is Becoming Hollywood’s Next Big Trend – And Why Dead by Daylight Could Benefit
For years, Hollywood has searched for the next major horror franchise. Surprisingly, the answer may have been hiding in the darkest corners of the internet. The enormous commercial success of Backrooms has proven that online horror phenomena can attract mainstream audiences, encouraging major studios to greenlight more films based on internet-born creations. Among the biggest projects now in development are adaptations of SCP Foundation, The Mandela Catalogue, and Siren Head, marking the beginning of what could become a new era of internet horror cinema.
The Backrooms Phenomenon
The Backrooms originated in 2019, when an anonymous user posted a simple image of a seemingly endless yellow office space on the website 4chan. The unsettling image was accompanied by a short story describing an endless maze of empty rooms that people could accidentally enter by “noclipping” out of reality. The concept quickly exploded across Reddit, YouTube and social media, inspiring thousands of fan stories, artwork and games.
The phenomenon reached another level in 2022, when teenage filmmaker Kane Parsons (known online as Kane Pixels) released his analog horror series on YouTube. His realistic visual effects, found-footage style and expanded mythology transformed the Backrooms from a simple creepypasta into one of the internet’s most recognizable horror universes.
Hollywood quickly took notice, and A24, Atomic Monster and other major production companies adapted the concept into a feature film directed by Parsons himself.
The gamble paid off spectacularly.
Produced for an estimated $10 million, Backrooms became one of the biggest horror success stories of the decade, earning approximately $350 million worldwide. That represents a return of more than 35 times its production budget, making it one of the most profitable horror films in recent memory and one of A24’s biggest commercial hits ever. The film demonstrated that audiences were eager to see internet-born horror stories receive the blockbuster treatment, opening the door for many similar projects.
SCP Foundation: The Collaborative Horror Universe
The SCP Foundation began in 2007 on the online forum 4chan before evolving into a massive collaborative writing project.
Unlike traditional fictional universes, SCP is built by thousands of contributors who create reports documenting strange creatures, cursed objects, supernatural locations and reality-bending anomalies. These reports are written as classified scientific documents produced by the fictional SCP Foundation, an organization dedicated to “Secure, Contain, Protect.”
Over nearly two decades, the SCP universe has grown into one of the largest collaborative fiction projects on the internet, featuring thousands of anomalies ranging from terrifying monsters to bizarre objects with impossible properties.
A film adaptation has now been announced, showing that Hollywood believes SCP’s enormous mythology could support a cinematic franchise.
The Mandela Catalogue
Created by Alex Kister in 2021, The Mandela Catalogue became one of the defining examples of the analog horror genre.
Set primarily in Mandela County, the series follows humanity’s struggle against mysterious entities known as Alternates—doppelgangers capable of perfectly imitating humans while psychologically tormenting their victims.
Rather than relying on jump scares, the series builds tension through distorted television broadcasts, emergency alerts, VHS aesthetics and religious horror themes. Its unique storytelling style helped it become one of YouTube’s biggest horror sensations.
Following the success of Backrooms, a film adaptation of The Mandela Catalogue has also been officially announced.
Siren Head
Unlike the other franchises, Siren Head did not begin as a creepypasta but as an original creature designed by Canadian horror artist Trevor Henderson in 2018.
The towering skeletal monster, recognizable by the pair of air raid sirens replacing its head, rapidly became a viral internet sensation. Thousands of fan animations, games, short films and stories expanded its popularity, making it one of the most iconic internet monsters of the last decade.
Warner Bros. has now announced a feature film based on Siren Head, further confirming Hollywood’s growing interest in adapting internet horror properties into theatrical releases.
Hollywood Has Found a New Source of Horror
For years, horror studios adapted novels, comic books and video games. Today, they are increasingly looking toward YouTube, creepypastas and online collaborative fiction.
The success of Backrooms has demonstrated that internet horror communities are capable of generating passionate fanbases comparable to traditional franchises. Rather than creating entirely new intellectual properties, studios are now investing in concepts that have already proven themselves online.
If these adaptations succeed, many more internet horror icons could eventually make the jump to the big screen.
What This Could Mean for Dead by Daylight
This growing cinematic trend could also have major implications for Dead by Daylight.
Behaviour Interactive has built its multiplayer horror game around collaborations with famous horror franchises, bringing together characters from movies, television, video games and comics. Once internet horror properties receive official Hollywood adaptations, licensing negotiations may become significantly easier, as film studios often centralize the rights for merchandising and crossover projects.
Should Behaviour collaborate with the studios producing these films, players could eventually see killers and survivors inspired by Backrooms, SCP Foundation, The Mandela Catalogue, or Siren Head joining the game’s ever-expanding roster.
At the moment, no collaboration has been announced, and any connection between these upcoming films and Dead by Daylight remains purely speculative. However, considering Behaviour’s long history of partnering with major horror licenses, these internet-born franchises now appear more realistic candidates than ever before.
The success of Backrooms may ultimately be remembered not only as the first major blockbuster born from an internet horror phenomenon, but also as the movie that convinced Hollywood that the future of horror might already be lurking online.
P.S.: FOLLOW LEAKSBYDAYLIGHT ON FACEBOOK, TIKTOK, TWITTER/X, INSTAGRAM, DISCORD, BLUESKY:
