The scariest movie you see this year might be set in a liminal space.
While studios like Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery are gearing up to release big-budget blockbusters this year, some independent distributors like A24 and Neon are embracing low-budget horror films that take place in one setting—specifically liminal spaces, which are empty or abandoned places that have an eerie and surreal feel to them.
Undertone, which came out last month, was originally made on a micro-budget of $500,000 and acquired by A24 for an undisclosed mid-seven-figure deal, following its debut at Fantasia Fest last year. It has earned more than $18 million at the box office.
Set solely in a small house, the film follows a young woman caring for her dying mother, and who cohosts a horror podcast when unusual occurrences begin happening around her.
IFC Films and Shudder’s new horror comedy Forbidden Fruits takes place in a mall, while YouTuber Markiplier’s sci-fi horror film Iron Lung, adapted from a video game, is set exclusively in a submarine.
Apple TV’s Severance, which explores employees who have agreed to a procedure that separates their work and personal lives, utilizes the use of liminal space through fluorescent-lit hallways in the fictional and mysterious Lumon Industries building.
Meanwhile, Neon’s Exit 8, which premiered in the U.S. today after debuting in Japan and the Toronto Film Festival last year—and is based on the popular Japanese video game of the same name—follows a man as he looks for an exit in an endless subway station tunnel.
A complex nostalgia trip
Why are so many new horror movies and shows set in liminal spaces and what’s driving that popularity?
For one, Gen Z and Gen Alpha moviegoers love horror. Research from Gen Z insights firm YPulse found that 30% of 13- to 17-year-olds watch horror/thriller video content weekly.
Combining that with liminal space evokes specific nostalgic and complicated feelings in Gen Z.
The Backrooms is perhaps the most notable viral example of liminal space imagery. Pictures of an abandoned furniture store in Wisconsin began to circulate in the early 2000s before becoming widespread across 4chan and creepypasta communities in 2019.
YouTuber Kane Parsons later turned the Backrooms into a series on YouTube in 2022, and now he’s adapting it into an upcoming feature-length film directed by Parsons starring Academy Award-nominated actors Renate Reinsve and Chiwetel Ejiofor. A24 will release the film next month.
Liminal spaces began to gain even more traction during the COVID-19 pandemic, with subreddit communities and hashtags on TikTok featuring thousands of members and posts, respectively, dedicated to the phenomenon.
Tori D’Amico, managing content editor for YPulse, says liminal spaces are often tied to Gen Z’s nostalgia for familiar spaces from their youth.
“Many of the liminal spaces online are connected to places that had a lot of life during their childhood,” D’Amico says. “Malls and abandoned schools are prominent visuals in both found footage horror, analog horror, and liminal horror. Malls especially come up a lot because they used to be a big epicenter of socialization and commerce, and now it’s this visual of decaying consumerism, so it reflects a lot of interesting nuance between places that used to have something and don’t anymore.”
Coming of age in confined spaces
While liminal space horror in shows and movies sometimes feature supernatural elements or creatures, D’Amico says there is a parallel between COVID-19 lockdowns and current crises and that feeling of loneliness and being stuck.
“Not being able to escape a certain space is connected to something like quarantine,” D’Amico says. “Gen Z feels like their years of life have had a sense of doom hanging over them.”
She adds: “Whether it’s their parents or older siblings going through the Great Recession, coming up into a tough job market, or dealing with student loans, they have only ever known a world that is constantly experiencing new, dramatic global issues. Then they’re getting compounded into a pandemic where they’re shut out from the world.”
Genki Kawamura, director and co-writer of Exit 8, says his inspiration from the movie partially came from Dante’s The Divine Comedy, which explores the poet’s journey through hell, purgatory, and heaven. However, said he was also inspired by his tedious routine of daily life coupled with the horrors of the real world.
“These liminal spaces that are on some level familiar to us offer a glimpse into our daily lives, but from a different perspective,” Kawamura told Fast Company through a translator. “That link is also something that can drive a lot of fear, which is something you want for a horror film.”
While Exit 8 does feature the kinds of traditional scares that fans can expect out of any horror movie, Kawamura says it has an underlying message of hope, especially for people who feel “stuck” in these liminal spaces or during these times.
“We’re constantly bombarded with these instances of violence and wars that are happening around us, and we either don’t notice it and move on,” Kawamura says. “I hope this movie will help people in their own daily lives notice things that seem like anomalies and change the lens through which you see your daily life.”
Whatever the case, it looks like A24 and Neon are taking that a step further and trying to quite literally meet Gen Z in those spaces, bringing them from their phones and computer screens to the big screen.