October 2. A Horror Film That Features Virtual Reality

Loosely based on Daniel F. Galouye’s 1964 novel, Simulacron-3, it is a remake of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1973 miniseries World on a Wire.

Fancy, right?

Directed by Josef Rusnak, who co-wrote it with Ravel Centeno-Rodriguez, this is about the death of the owner of a VR company (Armin Mueller-Stahl) that has recreated 1937 Los Angeles. Douglas Hall (Craig Bierko), the man’s partner, is the primary suspect and is being investigated by the LAPD. In between, he falls in love with the dead man’s daughter, Jane (Gretchen Mol).

To find out who the real killer is, Hall goes into the simulation and becomes bank clerk John Ferguson. When he reveals to bartender Jerry Ashton (Vincent D’Onofrio) that his entire world is a simulation, the man tries to kill him. Well, hold on, because the world of 1999 we thought we knew is a simulation, too. Hall finds out when he drives to a place he’s never been before and learns that the world is one big wireframe.

This came out the same year as The Matrix and is all over the place with people being in several realities at once. Perhaps the most frightening aspect of this is that we may be less real than the characters in the video games we play.

You can watch this on Tubi.