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Who said the American Dream was dead? Before he became the youngest director ever tapped by indie powerhouse A24, Kane Parsons was creating horror videos from a quiet suburban neighborhood in Petaluma, Calif.
The 20-year-old filmmaker, whose viral internet horror series “The Backrooms” was transformed into a major motion picture this year, grew up in a modest Sonoma County home that stands in stark contrast to the lavish estates typically associated with Hollywood success.
Property records show Parsons has long been tied to a four-bedroom home in Petaluma’s Casa Grande area.
The roughly 1,700-square-foot property was purchased in 2004 for $425,000 by his parents and remains associated with both Michael Parsons and Susan Taylor Parsons, according to property records, though they divorced when Parsons was young.
The home sits on a typical suburban lot in a neighborhood of ranch-style and contemporary houses developed largely during the 1980s and 1990s.
Current estimates place the property’s value at around $900,000 to $1 million — a far cry from the high-end luxe homes most blockbuster directors are living in.
Yet it was from this unassuming setting that Parsons built one of the internet’s most successful horror franchises.
In January 2022, while still a teenager, Parsons uploaded “The Backrooms” series (Found Footage) to YouTube. The short film transformed an obscure internet creepypasta into a mainstream phenomenon, generating tens of millions of views and spawning an entire franchise of follow-up videos.
The series ultimately accumulated nearly 200 million views across YouTube, drawing attention from Hollywood studios eager to capitalize on internet-born intellectual property.
A24 eventually partnered with Parsons to adapt the concept into a feature film, making him the youngest director in the studio’s history when the project was announced.
The gamble paid off.
Released over the weekend, Backrooms opened to approximately $81 million domestically and roughly $118 million worldwide, delivering the largest opening in A24’s history and making Parsons the youngest filmmaker ever to direct a No. 1 movie at the North American box office.
The film stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve and Mark Duplass, and was produced with backing from Atomic Monster, the company founded by horror heavyweight James Wan.
While production later shifted to Vancouver and other locations, Parsons’ rise remains rooted in Northern California. The filmmaker has frequently spoken about teaching himself visual effects and animation as a teenager, developing the skills that would ultimately attract the attention of one of Hollywood’s most influential independent studios.
It is unclear if he still remains in the home. The Post has reached out to Parsons for comment.
English (US)