liminal horror and the appeal of the backrooms

The past couple of weeks, the internet has been aflutter with praise of Backrooms, which we caught in a late night screening the night it came out. It's one I, and apparently the whole of the internet horror community had been anxiously awaiting (I first heard it was happening back when I was writing about horror for GameRant, where everyone in the workplace chat was super excited.) I also have an attraction to the horror of spaces, of liminal spaces in particular. I've been thinking about this as I collect pieces for the upcoming eco-gothic anthology I've been working on. What makes these manufactured / built spaces often far more terrifying than traditional gothic ones (the woods, the haunted old house, caves and caverns). These spaces are often abandoned (or seem abandoned if not completely.) They are spaces once meant to be filled with people, so when empty, especially when in various states of disrepair, they seem creepier than ever. Decaying old malls are some of my favorite…