Mark Duplass thinks Backrooms and Obsession can be a "glimmer of hope" for Hollywood.

The 49-year-old actor, who plays researcher Phil in YouTuber Kane Parsons' Backrooms, is delighted to see the way the two new horror films have been received by fans at the box office despite the overall industry seemingly struggling.

He said in a video on X: "I just want to take a moment to celebrate the glimmer of hope that Obsession and Backrooms are bringing to our industry.

"And I don't want to overstate it. I know how complicated and dire things can be. But this is cool.

"We now know we have the democratised access to technology. We've been wondering where to put these things because the distribution system is so fractured.

"But we've got an example of creators woodshedding things, putting them online, building an audience, and now the people with the purse strings are going to notice probably a little bit sooner because they see what they can do at the box office in the form of these two films that are over-performing."

Obsession, written and directed by YouTuber Curry Barker, 26, was made for just $750,000.

Now in its third week, the Focus Features and Blumhouse film has become the first film released outside of Christmas since 1982 which has increased in its second and third weekends.

Backrooms, which comes from 20-year-old YouTuber Kane Parsons, was on track for the biggest opening in A24 history over the weekend, and could gross as much as $90 million off a $10m budget.

Duplass added: "So it helps to double down on what I've always believed in, which is we should be woodshedding at home with our friends.

"We should be using the tools that we have available to us, our iPhones and Blender and swing the sword that's in your hand, make your stuff and when it's really good, start putting it out there. And there's a path."

Duplass' comments come after horror icon James Wan, known for franchises like Saw, The Conjuring and Insidious, insisted the genre "keeps saving" the movie industry.

Speaking at the Produced By Conference at Universal Studios over the weekend, he said: "I've been a horror fan since I was a kid, and so naturally I grew up on a steady diet of horror movies through the '80s and '90s, inspired by great filmmakers like John Carpenter and Wes Craven.

"I look at them and think, 'You know what? I kind of want to do what they did.' Today we kind of mimic that model. And here we are.

"I say this to anyone who will listen: The horror genre keeps saving our industry."