Israeli SFX cosplayer Leia (@leiasfx) finished her recreation of the Red-Headed Woman from A24’s Backrooms and shared it on Instagram on September 26. The character’s design was what stayed with her: “The movie was alright but I fell in love with her design,” she wrote.
Rhiannon Roberts plays the woman, one of the film’s Still Life simulacra, who appears during a chase in a room with a Christmas tree and in a dinner roleplay scene. VFX Voice reports that Roberts spent 3 filming days in the prosthetic makeup.
The distorted design drew on artist Evan Penny’s “smeared-angle” sculptural style. Budget cuts led the production to replace a planned CGI version with practical makeup, giving Leia a screen creature built with prosthetics to recreate through cosplay.