Allora Drinks' love of cinema alongside Backrooms creates an intriguing collaboration

Allora Aperitivo al Limone, a lemon-infused Italian liqueur from the island of Procida, launched a campaign to sit alongside the Gen Z-fuelled hit film Backrooms. We examine why the odd pairing works.

For years, I’ve been occasionally distracted by the internet subculture of ‘backrooms’ and ‘liminal spaces’, usually through random Reddit posts and memes.

Forum posters, amateur photographers and filmmakers the world over have been obsessed with documenting strangely empty and soulless locations that feel somehow "in-between" realities. These typically include empty office hallways, vacant hotels, or desolate waiting rooms, which evoke a sense of nostalgia and unease.

The phenomenon has now moved out of these niche online horror forums and into the mainstream, sort of, via a feature film, Backrooms, produced by A24 and directed by Kane Parsons (a filmmaker who gained recognition on YouTube).

From internet curiosity to cinematic success

The film itself has gone on to become something of a cultural force, reportedly surpassing $212M at the global box office and becoming A24’s biggest ever release: a fairly remarkable trajectory for something that began life as a lo-fi internet curiosity.

The film is noted for its "unhinged mix of YouTube culture" and "incoherent production", which seems very in keeping with the Backrooms/liminal spaces genre, if you can call it that.

Why the Backrooms aesthetic resonates

During our weekly Creative Moment brainstorm, we riffed a bit on why this type of aesthetic is popular now, reasoning that it's a reaction to the media overload we all suffer from daily online doomscrolling. It’s about a need for escapism.

The topic came up following a campaign by Allora Aperitivo al Limone, which further raised further questions: “Why now? Why this brand?”

Jamie Mancini, co-founder, Allora Aperitivo al Limone and Wonderful Things creative studio, told Creative Moment about this project.

“Pairing Allora Aperitivo al Limone with the launch of Gen-Z horror film 'Backrooms' might sound bonkers, but it’s a fundamental part of how we’re building our brand world. Rightly or wrongly, I’ve always approached building brands the opposite way to how many others might advise, because I want everything to feel exciting and not see things simply as marketing exercises.”

“Throughout my career, it’s never been about whacking a logo in high footfall ‘hot spots’ or beating people over the head with brand cues. It’s about showing up and supporting things that speak to the heart of the brand, and one of Allora's is a love of cinema.”

The hype around A24's Backrooms is immense — and arguably feels a long way from the mid-century Italian coast until you start to unpack why the collaboration works creatively and culturally.

Creating an immersive 'liminal' experience

That thinking translated into a deliberately immersive launch moment in London. An exclusive UK event, produced by independent entertainment group elevenfiftyfive (co-founded by Ian Cartwright and David Kapur), took over Lost (an elusive Soho nightclub housed in the former Odeon cinema on Shaftesbury Avenue) and sold out in under 25 minutes through MASSIVE Cinema’s Gen Z community.

Rather than a traditional screening, the venue itself became part of the experience. 

Guests navigated strip-lit walkways, twisting staircases and dimly lit rooms dressed with props from the film’s fictional furniture store, creating a fully realised ‘liminal’ environment that blurred the line between the physical world and the Backrooms universe.

The screening was introduced by Parsons himself (still only aged 20), whose journey from viral YouTube creator to director of A24’s biggest-ever hit adds to the sense that this is a story born from internet culture rather than imposed onto it.

Following the film, the space shifted into a themed afterparty, with DJ sets and projections from the original Backrooms web series layered across the venue walls, extending that uneasy, in-between atmosphere deeper into the night.

Allora Aperitivo al Limone joined as the official drinks partner, serving bespoke cocktails throughout the evening in what marked its second collaboration with elevenfiftyfive: a subtle but intentional presence within a wider cultural moment rather than a dominant brand play.

Exclusivity and ephemerality

Crucially, very little of it exists online in the way you might expect.

Lost operates a strict no-phones policy (the venue forms part of Lost Village’s wider ‘Lost’ cultural concept, founded by Secret Cinema creator Fabien Riggall), meaning guests’ devices are sealed on entry.

In an age of constant documentation, the experience was designed to be ‘lived rather than captured’ with only a small number of curated images later shared through MASSIVE Cinema’s channels, reaching its 1.5 million-strong audience.

A bespoke physical photo booth offered one of the only tangible takeaways from the night: a rare analogue trace of something intentionally ephemeral.

Mancini unpacked how his passion for cinema inspired the collab:

“This partnership wasn’t about logo placement, it was about the brand being a small part of something that supported cinema, culture and creativity.”

It seems, then, that the pairing of a refined, culturally rich product inspired by age-old traditional techniques and featuring bold, maximalist, colourful iconography is part of the point here.

In an age where we’re overloaded with the temporary and artificial, something grounded in history and beauty works through its juxtaposition.

A smart, unexpected, but oddly logical, back route to appealing to consumers, we reckon.

All images supplied by Allora. Image credits: Nik Kaneti, Bertrand Augustin