Justin Chang, film critic from over at The New Yorker, he sees a lot of movies.

But the other day, he admitted something to me.

Popcorn movies, Hollywood stuff, he is not really tracking that.

Like, I'm the type of person who doesn't, is not the first person to click on the

trailer or whatnot. I'm like, oh, that's opening. You're a film critic at the New Yorker. What? You know, we just, I'm, I, uh, you know, there's, I, I keep abreast of, of certain, you know, I'll know, oh, what's that, you know, cool Iranian film coming out, but, you know, Hollywood, I'm a little, I let it come, you know, we'll hear about it soon enough, right?

That meant that. funny in film coming out, but, you know, Hollywood, I'm a little, I let it come, you know, we'll hear about it soon enough, right?

That meant that earlier this month, when a couple of new horror movies came out,

backrooms and obsession, Justin wasn't exactly the first in line for screenings.

Backrooms he knew a little bit about. It was released by Indy Studio A24.

Backrooms was definitely on my radar.

And so I was definitely curious to see it and to write about it.

And then Obsession, which opened, I believe, a week before Backrooms did, was already doing phenomenal box office.

And I had just gotten back from the Cannes Film Festival and he's going to write about

background.

Oh, I think I should write about obsession too, because this clearly, this seems to be something

of a one to punch these two films.

And I saw them both like on consecutive days and was like, oh, yeah, this will work.

Over the last couple of weeks, these two movies have become a bit of a phenomenon.

Both raked in tens of millions of dollars, even though obsession costs less than a million to make.

Both films come from Internet First Directors, and those directors are young, think 20, 26.

Finally, each movie seems to capture a mood among young people, a dread.

Justin says, the films are actually pretty different, but he gets why people are lashing them together.

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