You slip a stocking over your head and check that your pistol’s loaded before bursting into the local Chinese restaurant and cleaning out the cash register, locking the staff into the freezer. As police cars approach the exit, you clamber onto the roof instead. In front of you, the chasm between buildings stretches out. Behind, the cops close in. You make the leap, then plummet horrifically to your demise. A second later, you jolt upright in the real world.
In Strange Days (1995), virtual reality tech live immerses users into not imagined scenarios, but lived recorded encounters, making it possible to vicariously experience crimes from the perpetrator’s POV. Kathryn Bigelow’s sci-fi noir thriller grounds this futuristic device in the sobering reality of assault on women and racially-motivated police brutality, while being prescient about our modern screen addiction. Twenty years after its release came “America’s first social media murder,” a double homicide in Roanoke, with live footage shot from their murderer’s perspective.
