A reviewer smelling A24’s Backrooms candle compared its strange sweetness to the lure of a Venus flytrap. In a video posted to the movie’s Instagram account on October 26, 2026, she described old carpet, rust and a metallic sharpness, then said, “It doesn’t feel like blood, but it gives a sense of profound wrongness.”
She kept going back for another smell. The reviewer called the candle an accurate scent version of the movie’s world, despite how unsettling she found it.
Her impressions also differ from the product description. A24 lists the scent, Drift, with these notes: “metallic hiss, ash, humidity, sweetness, electrical overload and signal deformation.”
Carpet belongs in the official description for Wet, another fragrance in the 5-scent Joya x Backrooms discovery set. Its notes include “musky industrial carpet” and “cold pipe metal.”
The set also includes Static, Yellow and Sweetener, with each fragrance tied to a different timestamp in the film.
Another independent review, from The Green Head, also picked up old carpeting, alongside dust, humidity, cleaner and metallic ozone. Those are personal scent impressions, rather than the brand’s listed notes.
Announced by A24 on July 23, 2026, the $48 Drift candle contains 7 ounces of soy wax and has an estimated 50-hour burn time. It’s handmade in New York by Joya.
