If the unsettling emptiness of The Backrooms had you questioning reality, you’re not alone. Endless hallways, impossible architecture, mysterious creatures, and the creeping feeling that you’re completely alone make liminal horror one of the most fascinating subgenres right now. 🖤
These books like The Backrooms capture that same uncanny atmosphere—whether through abandoned spaces, shifting realities, cosmic horror, or impossible worlds that refuse to let you escape.
P.S. Was anyone else absolutely obsessed with the Backrooms movie? I saw it in theaters four times!!
15 Best Books Like The Backrooms Movie (If You Love Liminal Horror)
1. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Why you’ll love it: The ultimate Backrooms read.
A family’s house suddenly becomes larger on the inside than the outside, revealing an endless labyrinth of dark hallways that shouldn’t exist. As explorers venture deeper, reality begins to unravel.
Perfect if you love: Infinite hallways, psychological horror, impossible architecture.
⭐ Liminal Horror Rating: 5/5
2. The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher
Hidden behind a museum wall lies another world filled with endless bunkers, strange willows, and terrifying creatures lurking in the mist.
It perfectly captures the feeling of stumbling somewhere humans were never meant to find.
Perfect if you love: Creepy alternate dimensions and unsettling exploration.
3. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
A mysterious man lives inside an endless House filled with statues, oceans, clouds, and impossible halls.
Quiet, haunting, and beautiful, this novel feels like wandering through a dream you can’t wake up from.
Perfect if you love: Liminal spaces and atmospheric mystery.
4. Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
A scientific expedition enters Area X—a place where the laws of nature no longer apply.
Reality shifts, landscapes change, and something ancient watches from the shadows.
Perfect if you love: Unexplained environments and psychological dread.
5. The Cipher by Kathe Koja
A mysterious black hole known as “The Funhole” appears in an apartment building basement.
No one knows where it leads—or what comes back.
Perfect if you love: Unexplainable anomalies and existential horror.
6. There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm
Some monsters can only exist because your brain instantly forgets them.
Reality itself becomes dangerous as agents fight entities that erase themselves from human memory.
Perfect if you love: SCP Foundation vibes and mind-bending horror.
7. The Fisherman by John Langan
A grief-stricken widower discovers legends about a forgotten place where reality and death overlap.
Cosmic horror slowly replaces reality with something far older.
Perfect if you love: Atmospheric, reality-warping horror.
8. Dead Sea by Tim Curran
A crew becomes trapped in a surreal ocean where abandoned cities, monsters, and impossible landscapes appear from nowhere.
The feeling of isolation is overwhelming.
Perfect if you love: Endless exploration with no escape.
9. The Croning by Laird Barron
An elderly man slowly discovers that reality has been hiding terrifying secrets his entire life.
Cosmic horror blends with unsettling alternate worlds.
Perfect if you love: Slow-burn dread and hidden dimensions.
10. Roadside Picnic by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky
Alien visitors leave behind mysterious Zones where physics no longer works.
Treasure hunters risk everything exploring these impossible landscapes.
Perfect if you love: Dangerous anomaly-filled environments.
11. The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch
A government investigator travels through alternate futures while hunting a serial killer tied to the end of reality itself.
Every timeline becomes stranger than the last.
Perfect if you love: Reality collapsing and surreal science fiction.
12. Bunny by Mona Awad
Although not traditional horror, this novel becomes increasingly surreal as reality dissolves into bizarre dream logic.
You’ll constantly question what’s actually happening.
Perfect if you love: Psychological unreality.
13. The Deep by Nick Cutter
Researchers stationed miles beneath the ocean begin experiencing impossible phenomena.
Claustrophobic, disturbing, and filled with escalating psychological terror.
Perfect if you love: Isolation and environments that feel “wrong.”
14. The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall
A man without memories is hunted by a conceptual shark that exists within language itself.
Reality bends in increasingly bizarre ways.
Perfect if you love: Experimental horror and impossible concepts.
15. The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
After their mysterious guardian disappears, a group of adopted children inherits knowledge that defies reality.
The novel quickly descends into strange dimensions, ancient powers, and surreal horror.
Perfect if you love: Weird fiction with endless mysteries.
If you’re chasing the eerie feeling of The Backrooms movie, start with these three:
🥇 House of Leaves — the closest thing to reading The Backrooms in novel form.
🥈 The Hollow Places — creepy alternate worlds with unforgettable atmosphere.
🥉 Piranesi — haunting, beautiful, and packed with liminal space vibes.
Whether you love endless yellow hallways, impossible architecture, or stories where reality quietly falls apart, these books deliver the same unsettling feeling that makes The Backrooms so unforgettable.
Which of these books do you plan on reading first? 📚
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