Courtesy of A24
Audio By Carbonatix
By now, you’ve probably seen Kane Parson’s “Backrooms” — maybe twice. If you’re unfamiliar, backrooms are a piece of internet folklore that first emerged on 4chan. The urban legend goes that a parallel universe of endless labyrinthine, unsettlingly corporate rooms exists through hidden portals on Earth. Parsons used the myth as inspiration for a blockbusting movie, and after a very successful initial run, the A24 horror hit is back in theaters as “Backrooms: Everything Must Go,” an extended cut with 16 minutes of exclusive post-credits footage stuffed with fresh Easter eggs.
The film has brought back an earlier social media frenzy over liminal spaces, which are eerily empty and unsettlingly desolate spaces scattered throughout the world. If backrooms were real, they’d be a prime example of a liminal space, but abandoned hospitals and office spaces are a close, real example of the surreal structures.
But here’s the thing: you don’t have to travel interdimensionally to feel off-kilter other-worldliness in the Dallas area. In fact, one of Parsons’ Backrooms-related films was inspired by the now-demolished Valley View Mall. Naturally, we rounded up eight more local spaces that already look like deleted scenes from the film. Consider it your self-guided tour.
1. The Dallas Pedestrian Network
This is the undisputed champion. Three miles of tunnels sprawl across 36 blocks beneath downtown, designed by Montreal urban planner Vincent Ponte, who apparently believed the future was underground and confusing. The finishes change every hundred feet — stone here, lemon-yellow brick there — and boarded-up shops stare at you from old food courts. Visit at 1 p.m. on a Tuesday and you’ll find it nearly empty, which is exactly the wrong amount of people for a place that big.
2. AT&T Discovery District
Bright, polished, corporate and occasionally deserted — especially when it’s not the weekday lunch rush. There’s a giant media wall and sleek seating, and when you catch it at the right moment and stand in the middle, you can feel like Tom Cruise in that one part of “Vanilla Sky.”
3. Plaza of the Americas
Glassy, hollow and echoing, this downtown atrium has the exact acoustic profile of a dream you can’t quite wake up from. The ice rink is gone, the balconies stretch upward forever, leasing signs dot many vacant suites and storefronts, and your footsteps announce you to no one in particular. Peak liminal.
4. Dallas Public Library
Most of the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library is perfectly normal. Then you wander onto a quieter floor, and the institutional hum takes over — a dull multicolored carpet, buzzing lights, lots of negative space, rows of shelving that seem to go on longer than architecture should allow. Useful and just a little haunted. And even if just to live your Backrooms fantasy, it’s good to support our public libraries.
5. The Vista Mall
The dying-mall genre needs no introduction, and The Vista — formerly known as Music City Mall and, before that, Vista Ridge — delivers. Shuttered storefronts, a food court running on fumes and a particular silence unique to spaces built for thousands and visited by a dozen. It’s nostalgia and unease holding hands.
6. Meow Wolf Grapevine
Meow Wolf is intentionally liminal-by-design: surreal corridors, disorienting rooms and portals that dump you somewhere you didn’t expect. Where the tunnels stumbled into eeriness by accident, this place charges admission for it — and it’s worth every penny. This one is the kind of liminal space you actually want to get lost in.
7. Heritage Park
Cross into Fort Worth if you prefer your walks with a genuinely dystopian mood and a side of existential dread. This long-abandoned modernist plaza sits behind chain-link fencing and cones, its concrete terraces slowly reclaimed by weeds with brutalist ruins-gazing at its finest.
8. DalPark Garage
Yes, a parking garage made the list. This historic downtown structure earns it with a hypnotic spiral ramp that curls downward like something out of an M.C. Escher sketch. Follow it far enough, and you’ll swear you’ve left the ordinary world behind.
So, skip the concessions line and go find your own hum-buzz; just remember to keep track of the exits.
