9 Horror Movies to Inspire the Fear of Liminal Spaces in You

One of the hottest buzzwords taking over the cultural zeitgeist lately is liminal spaces. The phrase has been around for a while, but only in the past few years has the term taken on new life, especially in its prevalence in pop culture. Scroll on social media, and you’ll find posts talking about liminal spaces and the areas that exude an eerie aesthetic, such as malls after operating hours, empty alleyways, and maze-like locations around Metro Manila and beyond.  

In case you aren’t familiar, liminal spaces are supposed to be transitory spaces that you aren’t meant to stay in for long. Think corridors, stairways, hallways, and the like. But in the context of how it’s thought about in pop culture, especially in movies and video games, liminal spaces are eerily empty spaces that look off.  

Equal parts familiar and foreign, they play on typical scenery but twists them into something uncertain and unknown. You’ve been there before, but you also feel something is just not right, as if they aren’t meant to look that way. When used correctly in media, liminal spaces offer a sense of foreboding dread and uneasiness in the familiar. It’s a trait that plays well with horror movies, and over the years, a handful of films have effectively used that feeling of forever emptiness. Dive into a selection of movies about the horrors of liminal spaces below.

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Backrooms – The Movie Making Liminal Spaces a Hot Topic

If you’re wondering why liminal spaces have been taking over feeds lately, you can thank this movie. Backrooms is based on the viral internet legend and YouTube videos by Kane Parsons and centers on unexplainable and creepy backrooms filled with all sorts of frights. Drapped in their signature yellow wallpaper, these rooms initially look like oddly placed office spaces and empty rooms, but a deep dive into the Backrooms reveals twisted architecture populated by terrifying creatures.

The film follows therapist Dr. Mary Kline as she is forced to enter the Backrooms to find one of her patients, Clark, after he discovers an entrance to the Backrooms in the basement of his furniture store. What awaits the two of them will change their lives.

Skinamarink – A Home That Isn’t As It Seems

Liminal spaces lean more into atmosphere over direct action, a trait this movie excels in. It makes it one of the most visually interesting but divisive horror films of the 2020s. This Canadian movie from 2022 follows brother and sister Kevin and Kaylee. One day, they wake up to find that their father is missing and that all the windows and doors of their home are gone.

This indie film focuses on an increasing sense of dread and the liminal horrors of the unknown as their home slowly warps into something unrecognizable. Coincidentally, the movie’s director, Kyle Edward Ball, used to run a YouTube channel before he made the movie.

Cube – A Surreal Thriller That Plays With Space

This ‘90s horror gem asks how a group of people will make it out of a complex cube with puzzles that aren’t as they seem. When seven people wake up in a labyrinth made up of cube-shaped rooms, they must work together to survive and use their special skills to escape and avoid the deadly traps. As the movie becomes increasingly complex, Cube will have you questioning your sense of space with its surreal production design and tension on whether or not the group finally reached the end.  

The Shining – One of the OG Liminal Horror Movies

Before liminal spaces became a trending topic, Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror masterpiece showed audiences how scary uncanny locations and isolated spaces can be. Centering on Danny and Wendy Torrance and their son Jack as they watch over a hotel for the winter, the movie turns its central location, the Overlook Hotel, into a character in itself. Here, the hotel’s carpeted floors and famous patterns, along with the empty rooms and the ghosts that inhabit them, slowly break down the family’s sanity.

Vivarium – Something’s Wrong With the Perfect Community

It’s one thing to live in a pristine neighborhood, but when you settle down in a community where every house is the same, and there are seemingly no deviations, something is up. That’s the case in this movie. Gemma and Tom move into what is seemingly the perfect home. But their dream turns into a nightmare as they are forced to take care of a baby that isn’t theirs and can’t escape from a community composed of identical houses. Director Lorcan Finnegan delivers a visually compelling horror film where matching homes become a labyrinth and a prison in themselves.

Exit 8 – Can You Find Your Way Out

An adaptation of the popular video game of the same name, Exit 8 follows a man who finds himself trapped in a never-ending and looping subway corridor. He realizes that to find his way out, he must follow a series of rules. He must not overlook anything out of the ordinary. If he runs into something odd, he must turn back immediately. If there aren’t any anomalies, he should continue forward.

Each mistake sets him back to the start, as each new turn of the corner brings with it an unknown horror or uncanny change. Exit 8 turns the simple setting of a subway corridor into a foreboding space as spotting glitches or deviations in a familiar passageway becomes the name of the game.

The Empty Man – An Ex-Cop Discovers a Dark Secret

An underrated horror movie from 2020 that has been received in a better light lately, The Empty Man centers on James, a retired cop who finds himself in an increasingly disturbing case when an investigation into a missing girl spirals into a discovery of a secret cult and the truth behind an urban legend of supernatural origins. This film is best enjoyed unspoiled, so what we will say is that prepare for a horror movie that’s a lot deeper than it initially presents itself to be.

Beyond the Black Rainbow – Visually Striking Psychedelic Horror

Few things scream liminal horror quite like a secretive facility made up of eerie rooms and hallways that have something off about them. Such is the case in this sci-fi horror movie from Panos Cosmatos. Set in the ‘80s, the film follows a woman named Elena, who is held captive at the Arboria Institute as a test subject. Under the purview of Dr. Barry Nyle, Elena begins manifesting psychic powers, specifically telepathy, as she plans her escape from the facility. This visually striking film hooks you with its eye-catching use of colors, space, and location as you watch Elena make her way through a nightmare.  

The Blair Witch Project – Three Students Get Lost in the Woods

The Blair Witch Project is noted for how groundbreaking it was for the found footage subgenre. But the movie also leans into liminal horror in terms of its dreary yet familiar setting. Presented via recorded camcorder tapes, the movie is about three young students who try to leave a forest that seemingly shifts every day, all while they are being hunted by a mysterious entity. There’s a case to be made that the film turns the simple act of navigating woods into a dreadful terror that never ends.

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