The next liminal horror movie to come along in the wake of Neon’s Exit 8 and A24’s Backrooms will be The Space Between, an indie feature that just wrapped production.
Damian Maffei (The Strangers: Prey At Night, Wrong Turn, Haunt) stars in the upcoming horror movie The Space Between, and we’ve got some exclusive first look images today.
Maffei stars as Rick, an overnight security guard working inside a once-bustling shopping mall after closing. While quietly carrying the grief of losing his daughter, Rick clings to the structure of his nightly routine as a form of stability. Over the course of a single shift, that routine begins to fracture as something unseen retraces his every step.
Kate Kiddo (Black Eyed Susan, The Events Surrounding a Peeping Tom) co-stars in the liminal horror movie as Dispatch, Rick’s only point of contact during the night. She is a calm and steady voice guiding him through his rounds as the system he relies on begins to break down.
Production took place inside an operational Midwestern mall, utilizing real locations after hours to ground the film’s surveillance-driven psychological horror and liminal atmosphere. Built through a lean independent model, the production focused on performance, practical environments, and atmosphere.
Filmmakers were granted unlimited access to more than 96,000 square feet of retail, corridor, and back-of-house space for critical sequences, allowing the production to capture the scale, emptiness, and unsettling realism of a functioning mall after dark.
Writer/director Joshua Garity tells Bloody Disgusting, “The original image that helped define the internet’s idea of liminal horror was traced back to Wisconsin, and that matters because those are the kinds of spaces I grew up in. They were once the heartbeat of a community, but many of them have slowly eroded into something more unnerving. Half-empty malls that still echo with laughter, if you listen closely and strip away the fresh coats of paint. The Space Between comes from that same Midwestern familiarity. It’s not about recreating Backrooms, but about exploring why these spaces stay with you: the absence, the repetition, and the feeling that a place you know is somehow watching you back.”
The Space Between is targeting a Fall 2026 release. Stay tuned for updates.
