News
Theatrical-Only Found Footage Movie ‘It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This’ Will Screen at 10 Alamo Drafthouse Locations
Vowed by the filmmakers to never to be released online, It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This will screen at select Alamo Drafthouse cinemas on January 10.
The award-winning found footage horror movie will bring its intensity in 10 cities next week:
- Austin, TX at Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar
- Chicago, IL at Alamo Drafthouse Wrigleyville
- Dallas, TX at Alamo Drafthouse Richardson
- Denver, CO at Alamo Drafthouse Sloans Lake
- Los Angeles, CA at Alamo Drafthouse DTLA
- New York, NY at Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn
- Raleigh, NC at Alamo Drafthouse Raleigh
- San Antonio, TX at Alamo Drafthouse Park North
- San Francisco, CA at Alamo Drafthouse New Mission
- Twin Cities, MN at Alamo Drafthouse Woodbury
The one-night engagement marks the widest release thus far for the film, which has previously only been available to see at film festivals and one-off live events. Despite the unconventional self-distribution approach, it has grown an audience through word of mouth.
It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This is co-directed by Rachel Kempf and Nick Toti, who also star as a pair of filmmakers that buy a haunted duplex to shoot their indie horror movie. As strangers gather outside in a trance, their investigation escalates to obsession.
“Traditional distributors have expressed interest in the movie, but as soon as we tell them that we don’t want the movie to be released online, they basically run away screaming,” Toti explains. “Apparently, our strategy makes no business sense, but we’re small enough to do things the wrong way. We don’t have any advertising budget or investors we need to repay, so we can be less conservative in how we connect with audiences.”
I wrote in my review from Salem Horror Fest, “In a time when a never-ending deluge of content and screens are vying for attention, it’s increasingly difficult to get viewers fully invested in a movie. It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This‘ theatrical-only release strategy creates an intimate, immersive environment for audiences to feel as vulnerable as the characters on screen.”
The best part about engaging with collaborative genre fiction on the internet is that anyone can get in on the action, with worldwide accessibility often resulting in absurd story beats that wouldn’t be possible if any single person was responsible for the entire narrative. And while Kane Parsons’ Backrooms film is definitely the young filmmaker’s own unique take on the infamous creepypasta, it’s fun to see other creators join the Backrooms sandbox now that the big screen adaptation is getting ready for a record-shattering opening weekend.
As if cleverly timed releases like Puppet Combo’s The Backrooms game weren’t enough (not to mention that Scary Movie poster poking fun at Parsons’ flick), McDonald’s official social media accounts have now released an analog horror video of their own celebrating the liminal terrors of the McRooms – complete with a familiar purple surprise at the end of the footage.
While it’s funny enough to see the world’s most recognizable Fast Food giant engage with internet-borne Found Footage thrills seemingly out of the blue, the video is actually referencing a long-running gag among the Backrooms fandom where creators jokingly talk about there being a fully functional McDonald’s restaurant hidden somewhere in level 0 of the infamous liminal labyrinth.
Now, would it be too much to hope for a moist-carpet-flavored McShake to tie in with the film?
Backrooms is now playing only in theaters from A24.
You must be logged in to post a comment.