“I’m telling you, man, Virtual Reality is the way of the future!” Going further down the wormhole of science-fiction movies, specifically anything related to VR and cyberpunk, and I’m in the direct-to-video land of Full Moon Entertainment once again. Arcade (1993) is based on an original idea by Charles Band, as the opening credits inform us, and that idea was basically, “What if Tron but Nightmare On Elm Street?” A group of disaffected teens including Megan Ward, Peter Billingsley, AJ Langer and a young Seth Green hit their local video arcade – ‘Dante’s Inferno’ – and come across none other than John De Lancie (Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation) as a suit-and-tie video game executive giving out free promotional copies of the new game, Arcade. As the teens take their head-sets and power-gloves back home, they begin to disappear one by one. It’s up to Megan Ward’s character, herself traumatised by the suicide of her mother, and her gamer friend who rocks some shades and dresses in black (Billingsley) to step into the game and save their friends. My enjoyment of The Lawnmower Man kicked off this trend to only watch sci-fi at the moment, and I loved the Windows Visualiser meets Magic Eye aesthetics of their visualisation of cyberspace. Here, it feels more like an afternoon kid’s show, a Canadian import you might see on Cheez TV where kids in local theatre black leotards wander around a basic green screen inputting primitive Dungeon Master screen savers. Arcade does feel like an extended Goosebumps story where death happens but Noone Ever Really Dies (or do they?). It was wacky and silly, but it has a short running time and I enjoyed it; director Albert Pyun (Nemesis, Cyborg) provides some style by blasting in blue light into interiors and some neat framing. An early screenplay for David S Goyer who would go on to write the Blade movies, Dark City, Batman Begins, Man Of Steel. John Carpenter’s collaborator Alan Howarth also handles the ominous synth duties. Also features lots of bargain bin grunge off-cut tunes. Available to stream on Tubi.
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