Oculus Rift—the virtual reality headset that promises to revolutionize the way people look silly while watching movies and television—has yet to be made available to the public. However, the hardware gained a lot of buzz earlier this year after Facebook spent $2 billion to buy the company behind it, promising a future where scrolling through comments of your Facebook wall is more real than your waking life. Now San Francisco-based studio Jamwix has released the first feature film built to work with the Oculus Rift: Banshee Chapter, a low-budget horror flick produced, oddly enough, by Zachary Quinto.
The original, non-virtual reality version of Banshee Chapter was actually released last December, where it made a minor splash on VOD services. Shot in 3-D and loosely based on H.P. Lovecraft’s short story “From Beyond,” it follows a journalist searching for her missing friend. Eventually, the journalist finds herself caught up in a conspiracy involving government-sponsored, mind-altering drugs. At some point, there are monsters.
According to director Blair Erickson, the technology Jamwix used to repurpose Banshee Chapter for the Oculus Rift could be used with any 3-D film, so there might be additional movie releases for the hardware before its rumored debut during the summer of 2015. Meanwhile, Jamwix has already made the Oculus Rift-compatible version of Banshee Chapter available to download for free. Seeing as how few people besides developers currently have access to the hardware, this gesture is of limited use. However, those who want a look into the future of film are invited to download it, place their faces a few inches from the screen, and behold the horror.
[via Deadline]