So I had my first ever experience of horror VR and this was the result…
My reaction speaks for itself (I might add, I wasn’t aware I was being filmed, so I wasn’t acting up). Horror by its very nature is more immersive than any other genre. We rarely watch horror for Oscar-winning storylines or to gain a better understanding of human nature through artistic critique. We watch it specifically to invoke a reaction within ourselves: “Horror is a film genre seeking to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience’s primal fears.”
Of course, we have a degree of empathy when we watch any film. For example, when we watch comedies we laugh at the actors and situations unfolding onscreen, particularly if it’s something which resonates with us. But when watching horror we almost don’t see the actor (or actress wearing skimpy nightwear, more likely) as they creak the bedroom door open, as they look underneath the bed, as they slowly turn around to see… Our connection with the victim is achieved, in part, because horror films (especially the jumpy bits) are often filmed with a first-person camera angle as a deliberate window for the eyes of the viewer – when watching a horror film we become that vulnerable girl in skimpy nightwear, bracing ourselves for the inevitable. Hence the birth of found-footage horror.
Watching horror is all about building tension and atmosphere, not only on screen, but in your room at home. It’s immersive by its very nature, so it lends itself to VR without adaptation of style and form. And film makers have certainly copped on to this. The VR horror I’m watching in the reaction video is Sisters: A Virtual Reality Ghost Story – a three minute or so film about two dolls, available to download and watch on the Samsung Gear VR Lite. When you have the goggles and headphones on there really is nowhere to hide – you have no pillow to hide behind and you’re unable to cover your ears, which makes it all the more terrifying! Perhaps the best thing about this film is that it reacts to where you’re looking, so you get the scares at all the right time. This is in comparison to The Conjuring 2’s short VR promo and, while it’s pretty creepy, the film runs in its own time, so the timing of the scares was out if I was ever looking the wrong way.
Out of all of the film genres, I expect horror is going to do particularly well out of VR and I cannot wait to see film makers get creative with it as the technology picks up momentum.
Creepy Critic 