10 TV Shows and Movies Like “Behind the Scenes” That You Should Watch Soon.
The 20-year-old director’s low-budget film, based on a YouTube series, absolutely blew up the box office in its opening weekend, grossing over $80 million, marking the biggest opening weekend ever for an original horror film. (Meanwhile, the psychological horror film Obsession took second place in its third weekend—actually earning more than its second!—overtaking the latest Star Wars film .)
What’s most remarkable here is that neither “Backstage” nor “Obsession” are typical, mass-market horror films. “Backstage,” in particular, is a leisurely meditation on modern existence, in which even the most dreary setting feels like at least one circle of hell—much like “The Shining” turned a cozy, snow-covered hotel into a living nightmare. Its success inspires some hope that cinema may have made a comeback. And if you’re looking to further pursue that sense of existential dread, here are 10 more horror films and TV series that find the unsettling in the mundane.
Exit 8 (2025)
This recent film is the perfect complement to Exit 8 : it’s based on an indie walking simulator game in which you simply wander through an endless and surreal (but mostly banal) Japanese subway station; your only possible escape is by spotting small anomalies in the man-made landscape. From this short game and simple premise emerges an impressively realized thriller in which a Lost Man (Kazunari Ninomiya) finds himself in the same setting, trapped in a Danetan nightmare of endless repetitions and spirals that lead only back to the starting point. The proximity of Exit 8 and Exit 8 feels a bit like a zeitgeist trying to tell us something about our current cultural mood—we all seem to feel trapped in a mundane reality that feels vague yet increasingly threatening. Rent Exit 8 on Prime Video and Apple TV .
Skinamarink (2022)
An instant cult classic and highly controversial (even more so than, I daresay, Behind the Scenes ), Skinamarink is a low-budget horror film similar to Skinamarink, set in a strange liminal space. It’s even based on a popular web series. Kyle Edward Ball’s horror film began as a YouTube channel dedicated to recreating user-submitted childhood nightmares. It centers on 4-year-old Kevin, who is traumatized while home alone with his 6-year-old sister, Kaylee. There’s no plot, just the unsettling atmosphere of a child’s twilight world. Just as Behind the Scenes made me think about every stiflingly banal office space I’ve ever visited, Skinamarink perfectly captures a child’s mixed feelings of wonder and fear, even at the most mundane things. Watch Skinamarink on Tubi and Shudder.
In Fear (2013)
This British indie film explores two of life’s greatest, interconnected terrors: getting lost and going on a road trip with someone you barely know. After just two weeks of dating, Tom and Lucy (Iain De Caestecker from Agents of SHIELD and Alice Englert from Star City ) decide to go to a music festival together. Tom has booked a nice, secluded hotel on the back roads of the Irish countryside. It’s the setup for a horror movie, but Frightened goes in a slightly different direction—or, more accurately, no direction at all, as they soon discover they can’t get a signal and that every possible route leads them back to the same place. Things get worse when Tom hits the only person they’ve seen (Allen Leech from Downton Abbey ), a guy who turns out to be not quite as innocent a victim as he first appears. Watch Frightened on Prime Video and Tubi .
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Many of these films play on a deeply understandable fear of getting lost, and they’re especially effective if, like me, you’re completely clueless and often manage to get lost in your own neighborhood. This is where the independent film “The Blair Veitch Project” excels: the creepy moments are good and effective, but at its core, it’s a film about the terrifying experience of getting lost in the woods. Student filmmakers Heather, Mike, and Josh (Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard) travel to Burkittsville, Maryland, to document what is certainly just a myth about a local hermit who murdered numerous children, but who may have been under the influence of a much older entity. Watch “The Blair Veitch Project” on HBO Max.
As Above, So Below (2014)
Another bold found-footage horror film, this one takes us to a more terrifying location: the Paris Catacombs—a network of underground ossuaries containing the remains of some six million people (the filmmakers were among the first to secure permission to shoot there, adding to the film’s verisimilitude). Perdita Weeks plays Scarlett Marlowe, a young scientist convinced that the legendary Philosopher’s Stone is hidden deep beneath Paris. She assembles a team who soon discover that their mythical quest is entangled in an existential oddity. The setting doesn’t necessarily enhance the horror, but it certainly adds the novelty that has made the film a cult classic. Rent As Above, So Below on Prime Video .
Vivarium (2019)
A young couple (Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots) look at cute houses in a picturesque neighborhood, but find they can’t leave: all roads in this charming, endlessly monotonous area lead back to number 9. Food is delivered to them, but they can’t figure out who’s delivering it. Eventually, they’re given a baby to raise—with the implication that if they do what they have to, maybe they can escape this drowsy labyrinth of a neighborhood where they’re being forced to live a life they never dreamed of. There’s a metaphor there, I guess… Watch Vivarium on Tubi.
Channel Zero: No-End House (2017)
Each season of Nick Antosca’s horror anthology, like Behind the Scenes , is based on a different viral creepypasta, but the second season is the one that most closely follows the concept. Teenagers Margot and Jules learn that the “House of No End” is coming to town—a haunted attraction that moves from town to town, a building of interconnected rooms, each more terrifying than the last. Margot is dealing with the recent loss of her father, so a distraction seems like a good idea… at least until the house starts acting strangely. The girls and their friends leave, but Margot finds her supposedly dead father at home and isn’t quite sure what’s going on. At first, it seems as if the house has left behind things, or perhaps they never left. Although the story is rooted in grief, it’s rife with strange and surreal imagery; The image of a man ripping off his wife’s hand to eat the sticky seed pods inside her will likely remind you of a scene from the TV series “Behind the Scenes.” Watch “Channel Zero: House Without End” on AMC+ and Shudder.
Time Crimes (2007)
In a rural Spanish town, a man named Héctor (played by writer-director Nacho Vigalondo) is fiddling with his binoculars when he notices a woman being attacked in the nearby woods. His investigation leads him to the center of a time travel experiment, one he’s participated in several times before. Strictly speaking, he’s not trapped in a time loop ; rather, Héctor is trying to reconstruct events to correct the mistakes he made before realizing them. Like “Behind the Scenes,” this is literally a film about a man trapped in a vicious cycle of his own making, and the only way out is to break through it, no matter the cost. Watch “Time Crimes” on Prime Video and Tubi.
The Break (2022)
Late-stage capitalism encourages “work-life balance” while simultaneously making it impossible and making us feel guilty. In the series “Breakdown,” biotech giant Lumon Industries offers a solution: it will split your consciousness into a life at work and a life outside of it. For the main characters (including Adam Scott, Patricia Arquette, and Britt Lower), their work- and home-based identities become so distant that they become completely different people. The series combines elements of office dark comedies with films like “Brazil” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” exploring the perils of contemporary American totalitarian capitalism and reminding us that technology often promises to improve our lives only to make them worse. Beyond the thematic similarities, the aesthetic is remarkably similar to “Backstage”: the endless, nauseatingly boring hallways and halls of Lumon Industries are, if anything, even less appealing to the eye. Watch “Breakdown” on Apple TV .
Deep House (2021)
The French film “Deep House” may be more witty than scary, but it’s nonetheless an effective and captivating genre mashup that’s truly unique. Ben and Tina are a pair of YouTubers who enjoy livestreaming tours of supposedly haunted houses (we’ve seen that before); the catch is, their latest target has been tucked under a man-made lake for decades. What can they do but don diving gear and venture into the strangely preserved underwater mansion? Things quickly take a strange turn, which doesn’t stop them from trying to force open a door blocked by a large crucifix (apparently they decided to take a chance…). They soon discover that all exits are blocked (was that brick wall really there before?), leading them deeper into the house, which was likely flooded for a reason. Watch “Deep House” on Prime Video.