SCENARIO #1010101010: Computer
Compact Disc Read Only MURDER!!!!
Teenagers, as we all know, are scary. They’re entering adulthood. They’re discovering sex. They’re resistant to authority. They’re mannequins sometimes. But of all the terrifying threats posed by Teens throughout the 1990s, none was more potent than this: They do Computer.
The Internet, the chat rooms, the websites and CD-ROMs — all the cursed faerie gold strewn across America’s Information Superhighway — were second nature to ‘90s Teens, who could and did go Online with terrifying ease and frequency. How did they do it? What went on? Were violent video games involved, and, if so, how long before a teen inevitably embarked on a MYST-inspired crime spree? Will you turn off the modem so your sister can make a call, Trevor? Could your innocent Teen be a “hacker” who “surfed the web” when your back was turned?
The parents of the 1990s and early 2000s demanded answers to these questions, and horror movies gave them, using the latest in computer-generated animation to bring the terrifying world of The Internet to life. Witness, if you dare, the terrors the Future has in store.
Arcade (1993)
The Technology: Virtual reality.
Its Terrible Power: Documenting the awkward teen years of Peter “You'll Shoot Your Eye Out" Billingsley.
How can Computer hurt us? A group of cool and rebellious ‘90s Teens — Seth Green, Rayanne from My So-Called Life, a monstrously tall and deep-voiced Ralphie from A Christmas Story, and some other ones — enter that den of teen iniquity, a video game arcade, there to be seduced by Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation, who impishly suggests they try playing his all-new virtual-reality arcade game. It’s futuristic! It’s virtual! It’s immersive! It’s built out of the soul of a deceased child-abuse victim who sucks you into the world of Computer if you lose, but that’s just the price you pay for cutting-edge graphics like this:
Technology scares me. Can a Teen explain? “Games like Arcade that are interactive, supercomputers, and microprocessors, man… They're the wave of the future!”
Anything else? Nope, this one’s pretty cut and dry.