Author Archives: Carol Edwards

After being pushed a year from its initial premiere date in 2020, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune screened for an audience of critics at the 2021 Venice Film Festival.

Some praised the sprawling, massive scale of the movie as brilliant and awe-inspiring, while others faulted it for being the first part of a planned two-part series that ends just as things are getting interesting. A movie as huge and as anticipated as Dune, which has been described by more than one person as “unfilmable,” was bound to produce a wide array of critical opinions, with more to come closer to the planned premiere in Oct. 2021.

Here’s what critics have to say about Dune.

Smarter sci-fi

The Guardian, Xan Brooks

Denis Villeneuve’s fantasy epic tells us that big-budget spectaculars don’t have to be dumb or hyperactive, that it’s possible to allow the odd quiet passage amid the explosions…Dune is dense, moody and quite often sublime.

IGN, Scott Collura

Villeneuve frequently impresses with his ability to take tried and true sci-fi concepts and put some new spin on them.

A faithful adaptation

Roger Ebert, Glenn Kenney

To say I have not admired Villeneuve’s prior films is something of an understatement. But I can’t deny that he’s made a more-than-satisfactory movie of the book. Or, I should say, two-thirds of the book.

Empire, Ben Travis

And for science-fiction devotees, especially those who have long-worshipped Frank Herbert’s dense tome and waited decades for it to be brought to the screen in a more successful incarnation than previous filmmakers have managed, make no mistake: Villeneuve’s Dune is the adaptation you always dreamed of.

An abrupt ending

IGN, Scott Collura

Villeneuve has proven himself to be a master of the kind of smart and stylish sci-fi that a modern Dune adaptation demands, and the film is a triumph when it comes to its visuals and sound. But there’s a shapelessness to the latter part of the movie that drags it down and distracts from its beauty.

Indiewire, David Ehrlich

“Dune” only resembles a dream in that it cuts out on a note so flat and unresolved that you can’t believe anyone would have chosen it on purpose.

The LA Times, Justin Chang

Until the movie slams to an abrupt, unsatisfying halt halfway through the events of Herbert’s novel, there’s pleasure in watching this particular game of thrones play out, though perhaps more pleasure than depth or meaning.

A high bar for entry

Vanity Fair, Richard Lawson

Dune lumbers with such aloof, uninviting self-seriousness that it’s hard to love, hard to even celebrate as an assured piece of tentpole authorship. In all its marvel, Dune forgets to do basic things like give us someone or something to root for, or feel for, or think about for longer than the stretch of the film.

The Guardian, Xan Brooks

He has constructed an entire world for us here, thick with myth and mystery, stripped of narrative signposts or even much in the way of handy exposition.

Powerful and overwhelming

CNET, Richard Trenholm

In Villeneuve’s hands, this version of Dune is a richly detailed and hugely evocative imagining filled with striking imagery. It’s supremely and winningly odd. 

The LA Times, Justin Chang

For now, it’s hard to deny the excitement of feeling swept up in this movie’s great squalls of sand, spice and interplanetary intrigue, realized with a level of craft so overpowering in its dust-choked aridity that you may want to pull your mask up a little tighter in the theater.

EW, Leah Greenblatt

In fact Villeneuve’s new adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic 1965 novel is exactly the kind of lush, lofty filmmaking wide screens were made for; a sensory experience so opulent and overwhelming it begs to be seen big, or not at all.

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Dune premieres in theaters and on HBO Max October 22.

GoDaddy has informed Texas Right to Life that they’re being evicted.

The domain host let the anti-abortion group know that their site, which allows citizens to report anyone who performs or assists an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, violated GoDaddy’s terms of service and would therefore be removed within 24 hours. The site sprang up in an effort to enforce the Texas Heartbeat Law.

“We have informed prolifewhistleblower.com they have 24 hours to move to another provider for violating our terms of service,” said GoDaddy spokesperson Dan C. Rice in an email to Gizmodo.

The terms that were violated probably included reporting personal information without the subject’s consent, as the Texas Right to Life site’s submission form allowed anyone to do.

When Mashable attempted to visit the site, a location-based WordPress security plugin prevented any access. It’s unclear if this block was initiated by the site owners or as a result of GoDaddy’s eviction, but it’s likely the former given the nature of the plugin along with recent reports of attempts to overload the website with spam submissions.

A Texas Right to Life representative has said that this move doesn’t deter them from their goals.

“Our IT team is already in process of transferring our assets to another provider and we’ll have the site restored within 24-48 hours,” said spokesperson Kimberly Schwartz to NPR.

Later on Friday, the Right To Life website went offline a second time after Digital Ocean, its next hosting provider which has terms of service similar to GoDaddy’s, also dropped the account (h/t Ars Technica). It reappeared a few hours later with a new host, the rather infamous Epik, meaning the anti-abortion whistleblower website now joins a community that includes a neo-Nazi homepage, an imageboard that’s been a favorite of mass shooters, and a social media platform that served as a gathering place for alleged perpetrators of the Jan. 6 riot in Washington, D.C.

Before the site went down, internet “hacktivists” were working overtime to bomb the submission form with fictional reports, hoping to make the site useless. Sean Black, a TikTok user and coder, created a bot to submit a false report about every 10 seconds. His IP address was eventually blocked, but he went on to create an iOS shortcut that continued to fill out false reports. According to Vice, almost 5,000 people have accessed the shortcut.

Texas Right to Life claims that the attempts to sabotage the site have failed, and that they were prepared for such a situation. Still, its incredible to think about anti-abortion groups having to sift through thousands of submissions, trying to figure out if one of Marvel’s Avengers really tried to have an abortion.

UPDATE: Sept. 4, 2021, 8:11 p.m. EDT Added info on the website’s move from GoDaddy to Digital Ocean to Parler.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is a lot of things.

It’s a huge step forward in Asian-American representation in the superhero genre, a fantastic movie that carves its own path in the saturated Marvel Cinematic Universe, and a showcase for everyone’s new favorite Marvel hero Simu Liu. It’s also, for the deep cut Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) buffs, our first real look at the long-awaited multiverse.

Most of fans’ expectations for introducing the multiverse, a transformative concept that could break the MCU wide open and allow Disney to use all of its Marvel-associated properties in the record-breaking franchise, fell on upcoming movies Spider-Man: No Way Home and 2022’s Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. Shang-Chi’s story was expected to be more contained to a street-level hero’s powers, but Shang’s journey surprisingly took him where no MCU hero has gone before — to another universe entirely.

Shang-Chi opens on the story of Wenwu, the immortal master of the Ten Rings and Shang-Chi’s father. Bored with money and power, Wenwu travels to what first appears to be the magical land of Ta Lo, where he meets Jiang Li, the guardian of Ta Lo and his eventual wife. Jiang Li leaves her homeland behind to marry Wenwu and have two children, Shang-Chi and Xialing, before she dies defending them from Wenwu’s old enemies, the Iron Gang.

There are a few important things to pay attention to in Jiang Li’s story. The first is that Jiang Li has powers in Ta Lo. She can manipulate wind and uses it to enhance her practice of a wuxia-inspired martial art unique to her people. The second is that when Jiang Li joins Wenwu in the “real” world, she loses her powers. The third part comes later, when Shang-Chi and Xialing finally make it to Ta Lo and meet their auntie Ying Nan, who tells her niece and nephew that the great evil kept at bay in Ta Lo must be stopped before it reaches “your universe.”

Ta Lo is another universe entirely, one where butt-chicken dogs like Morris frolic freely and the birds are on fire all the time.

This is the first indication that Ta Lo is not a magical land somehow hidden in the MCU’s normal plane of existence. Ta Lo is another universe entirely, one where butt-chicken dogs like Morris frolic freely and the birds are on fire all the time. Jiang Li was not a human as we know them, but a being from another dimension who drew her power from her universe — which makes Shang-Chi and Xialing the first Marvel characters who are half–multiversal from birth.

The mid-credit scene in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings offers a tease about where the Ten Rings actually came from, which is that they’re older than anything the MCU characters have encountered before and they started acting as a beacon to something once Shang-Chi started using them in the movie’s third act. This could be a hint that the Ten Rings are calling to super old beings like the Eternals, or could suggest that they, like Jiang Li, are from another universe. The watery portal to Ta Lo is difficult but not impossible for regular people to reach, which means that there may be other accessible portals to the multiverse hiding on Earth, as well as other multiversal artifacts scattered around the world.

It’s just like Marvel to build up something huge like the multiverse over the course of several TV shows and a last-minute Spider-Man trailer, only to surprise fans with a standalone origin story that just happens to take place in another universe. As the MCU continues to charge towards the multiversal war promised in Loki, Shang-Chi and Xialing have just cemented their places as two of the most pivotal characters in the storyline.

Just imagine when the most powerful people on Earth-199999 start flipping out about traveling to other realities and Shang-Chi is looking at them like “oh, I didn’t realize this was your first time.” Now all the rest of the Phase 4 heroes have to do is get on Shang-Chi and Xialing’s level.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is playing in theaters.

Welcome to Porn Week, Mashable’s annual close up on the business and pleasure of porn.

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The current state of virtual reality adult video games doesn’t come close to reaching the medium’s full potential for sexual exploration. Yet the promise of intimacy — or at least rubbing one out — in digital virtuality remains one of tech’s most tantalizing possibilities for the future of sex.

We’re far from reaching anything close to what that one uncharacteristically non-dystopian Black Mirror episode imagined. But the porn VR game community, from creator to consumer, is dedicated to getting us closer. Despite some faults, VR porn games tend to be light years ahead of standard live-action VR video porn, with small indie teams achieving incredible technical feats and genuinely interesting design innovations.

“The VR porn game world is definitely getting more sophisticated. Much more refined gameplay, more experimentation, better physics, and more immersive experiences,” said Ana Valens, an adult games creator and journalist who covers adult VR games extensively. (Note: The author of this article knows Valens socially.) Now that the VR industry as a whole has settled on some basic, foundational best practices for game design, the adult VR community is reaping the benefit, too. “Even adult VR games that are primarily glorified sex doll games have far more advanced physics. In the latter case, it doesn’t feel like you’re just fondling a 3D model, but you’re interacting with a real person…[like in the] immersive dungeon game Primrose Dungeon.”

The adult VR games space gives an irresistible glimpse into what the near-future of embodied sexual immersion can be.

Also, “It’s growing fast. The launch of the Quest and the pandemic created a perfect storm,” said the self-described VR tech enthusiast who goes by Soren and runs the biggest VR porn game review aggregation website, LewdVRGames. Traffic to the site doubled in the past six months alone, while the rate of new game releases skyrocketed from every other month to practically every few days.

A week of testing dozens of titles in the adult VR games space gave an irresistible glimpse into what the near-future of embodied sexual immersion can be. But it also revealed glaringly significant cultural and technical barriers to entry that keep many on the outside of virtual reality’s walled garden.

Aside from socioeconomic issues around cost and the need for enough technological proficiency to handle constant troubleshooting, the homogeny of who makes VR porn games further limits audiences.

“Most of the content…is developed by cis, male, heteronormative developers for cis, male, heteronormative males,” said Ryujiro Kumazawa, Head of Developer Relations at the Japanese adult VR platform ImagineVR.

Still, the interest is there, with Kumazawa claiming at least a “sizable” amount of women and LGBTQ users. That small but growing audience will only be further encouraged by what Kumazawa identifies as a shift in adult VR games towards more “niche-ified” sexual content. Aside from BDSM (like FemDom by Citor3, Dr. Deviant, and Nympho Trainer), “We’ve seen hentai and even furry-porn emerge. It’s exciting because it means it’s more than a flash-in-the-pan fad and actually is growing deep roots into the cultural landscape.”

But there’s no denying that vanilla, hyper-realistic sandbox sex simulators still dominate, Valens said. She hopes to “see more VR games that break from vanilla penetration and sex and lean into more kink, leathersex, fantasy desires.”

On the plus side, Valens hasn’t personally encountered much hostility from adult VR game developers toward her or other marginalized genders and sexualities. More often, they’re just passionate about smut and open-minded to folks and tastes that differ from theirs. Ultimately, that may be precisely the reason why erotic VR games can be so disproportionately and unexpectedly appealing to the sexually marginalized.

“There’s much to be said for how queer women can walk into VR adult games and bend them toward their desires,” said Valens, referencing the thriving queer modding community behind titles like Honey Select Unlimited.

What all three of our industry sources agree on is that adult games will play a huge role in VR finally going mainstream.

“As with any medium, adult entertainment drives adoption,” said Kumazawa, hinting at the porn industry’s history as a leading driver of innovation during the early web.

“Good sexual content and experiences consistently convince people to shell out top dollar. Just look at how popular high-end vibrators are,” Valens agreed.

How to play VR porn games: What you’ll need

Now, I won’t sugar coat this part: There are huge barriers to entry to playing VR porn games, both in cost and technical know-how.

As it stands, playing VR porn games is not beginner-friendly, with a nightmarish learning curve and technical struggles. These are highly stigmatized and policed games, with no central “home” (even Patreon has cracked down on NSFW devs in the past, though it remains the best option for now) and tenuous relationships to VR’s corporate overlords like Facebook and Valve.

If you ask me, though, the experiences are worth it.

The first question to ask is what kind of gear you’re willing to invest in. For that, check our how-to guide for watching VR porn with a breakdown on options. Adult VR video games often require more computational power, so you’ll definitely want a dedicated device — ideally in addition to a VR-capable PC.

Oculus Rift, Quest 1 or 2, and HTC Vive are all solid options. Personally, we recommend a Quest. The standalone headset is reasonably priced ($299) and versatile, able to be souped up into the equivalent of Rift when connected to a PC via Oculus Link cable.

While there are increasingly more native Quest games you can play without a PC, a majority of current titles still require a computer high-end enough to run PCVR. Luckily, connecting the Quest to your PC through the Oculus PC app and a USB-C to USB-A cable is pretty easy.

As Valens explains in her guide on how to play porn games on the Quest, you will always need to basically jailbreak the Oculus in order to bypass the app store’s censorship of all adult content. Native Quest porn games can only get onto the headset through a process called sideloading, most easily done through a third-party app like Side Quest.

Those using Oculus Link for PCVR games don’t need Side Quest, but should follow the steps for turning on developer mode from this guide on how to sideload games onto the Oculus Quest. You should also download SteamVR, the app’s home software for VR games. Steam is becoming a VR powerhouse in its own right, despite Valve’s previously fraught relationship with sex in games.

Getting the most up-to-date builds of VR porn games often requires navigating labyrinths of developer blog posts, Discord servers, forums, and Patreons. After all that, there’s still a high chance of spending money on a broken or underwhelming game. Quality control and user-friendliness are two major challenges of enjoying porn VR games. Which is where we come in.

Please note: We were limited to selecting titles we could access through free demos, a VRPorn.com Premium account, ImagineVR, and review copies from creators. Many are works in progress in active development via support on Patreon, which you should consider doing for full access to your favorites.

Aside from what we’ve curated below, you can also peruse the ever-expanding library found on LewdVRGames, Itch.io’s adult VR games library, and Steam’s adult games library (which requires manually checking for VR compatibility).

Best overall to satisfy more vanilla, cishet tastes: Holodexxx

Why it’s great: Offers a photorealistic virtual porn star strip club and a robot girlfriend experience simulator with subtle sci-fi storytelling.

What it’s all about: The popular Holodexxx is widely regarded as the most photorealistic, graphically advanced adult game being made for VR. Aiming to be the future of adult entertainment, the team focuses on creating high-end mo-capped 3D scans of real-world porn stars like Riley Reid. The free demos currently offered are little more than lifeless, uncanny-valley virtual strip club imitations with said models, in my own personal opinion. It’s all the sleaziness of an IRL strip club without any of the fun social interactions with the actual human being that make it appealing. There’s even Holodexxx AR app allowing Android users to bring the virtual porn star into their own IRL surroundings — something boring live-action VR porn has been doing for years with equally underwhelming results.

The reason Holodexxx is worth the hype, though, is found in Home, the two-episode story mode (with a third scheduled to release soon) you must purchase for $5. The premise finds you in a not-so-distant, subtly dystopian future, where the company you work for provides a sexy AI robot (played by porn star Marley Brinx) to keep you happy. While only one model with limited customization is available right now, the narrative, world-building, and interactive features deliver on Holodexxx’s promise to be the next evolution in porn. There’s even a Studio DLC, where you can basically create your own porn scenes, sets, and photoshoots. Better still, the developer team clearly works closely with (and hopefully generously compensates) the porn stars they partner with, not only for the right to their virtual likeness but for the IRL porn videos you can watch on your virtual TV screen while pleasuring your AI sex robot in VR.

Paying for your porn, especially the sex workers who star in them, is essential to more ethical adult entertainment. We’re hopeful Holodexxx will usher in a brighter future for consumers and the industry alike.

Platforms/Compatibility: HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and Rift S, Oculus Quest via link cable or streaming Valve Index, Windows Mixed Reality, PC (non-VR)

Price: Free demos, with story mode for purchase for $5 itch.io or a $2.50 to $5 a month Patreon subscription

Best overall to satisfy more expansive, queer, and kinky tastes: Captain Hardcore

Why it’s great: This gorgeous sci-fi-themed sandbox delivers a vast variety of more kinky, atmospheric, and LGBTQ sex scene simulators with extensive character customization.

What it’s all about: So maybe you’re into the photorealistic stuff, but want to go further away from home than a vanilla VR strip club. Welcome aboard the S. S. Captain Hardcore, an unbelievably expansive sex simulator taking you into the final frontier of outer space fucking. With far more immersive world-building and atmosphere than most run-of-the-mill VR orgy sandbox, you’re some sort of space captain scientist. Your mission in search of subjects to fill your big fancy spaceship with as many moans and bodily fluids as possible spans across the galaxy.

The full version of the game provides two main “work stations” or modes where you can customize practically every inch of each character you poof into existence. In the Biometrics Lab, you can conduct probing experiments, allowing for some light kink roleplay. The Cyber Masturbatorium chamber acts as a scene recording studio. Starting from scratch or from a preset, you can literally bend the characters to your will in every which way, choosing the positions and animations they simulate before recording it all for, uh, posterity or history or science or whatever.

Unlike Holodexxx and many others, this game does not assume your gender or genitalia. The character customization and scene selection options make it more LGBTQ-friendly, too. Kinksters might enjoy exploring the giantess preset. I didn’t try it, but Captain Hardcore also promises some Bluetooth-enabled sex toy integrations allowing players to attach a controller or Vive tracker to a Fleshlight that connects to a character model’s hip.

Platforms/Compatibility: HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and Rift S, Oculus Quest via link cable or streaming, Valve Index, Windows Mixed Reality, PC (non-VR), Oculus Quest 1 and 2 (standalone build not requiring PC, but still in development and more limited)

Price: Free demo, with fuller access versions starting at a $5 a month Patreon subscription

Most innovative eroticism: Dominatrix Simulator

Why it’s great: You’ll experience the true erotic potential of VR through a fully embodied, thoughtfully designed, consent-driven, intimate BDSM exploration where you play as the submissive to a pantheon of fantastical FemmeDom beauties.

What it’s all about: Most of the games on this list are porn on steroids. But Dominatrix Simulator occupies a category unto itself, more like VR erotica than porn. While still packed with hot and heavy sex scenes, Dominatrix Simulator adds real-world immersion, encouraging you to play naked and making you “perform” IRL through VR’s head and hand tracking capabilities.

You pick between feminine or masculine presentations, which the game describes as “gender fluid,” with characters referencing the gender, pronoun, and genitals you prefer. You’re then taught to respond “yes” by nodding or “no” by shaking your head (aka consent). Soon after, you meet the Goddess, the FemmeDom running this other-worldly BDSM dungeon. She gives you more commands to act out IRL, like getting on your knees, putting your hands behind your head, arching your back while spreading your legs open for her. I even got scolded for looking away at one point.

As in all responsible BDSM experiences, you can say no to anything. More impressive still, one FemmeDom requires you periodically stop by her office for a therapy session of sorts, or what the BDSM community calls “aftercare.” She checks in on you emotionally, makes sure you’re still enjoying yourself, and asks about any mental distress that might’ve come up from the roleplay.

It’s a perfect beginner-friendly way for the uninitiated to experiment with BDSM from the safe distance of virtual reality.

Platforms/Compatibility: Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest via link cable or streaming, HTC Vive, PC non-VR

Price: Free demo on Steam or Itch.io, purchase standalone experience for $12.99 on Itch.io or Steam, or get the latest (ever-evolving) $5 or $10 a month Patreon subscriber build

Best subscription/bundle: VRPorn Premium

Why it’s great: This is the go-to hub for all things VR porn, offering a great game section bundle with many of the titles on this list for a bargain price and added convenience.

What it’s all about: OK, this isn’t a game. But trust me, it will save you lots of effort, time, and money. Instead of individually hunting builds and demos for each title, just buy a single month of VRPorn Premium. Then download all the games and deactivate it, since you got what you came for.

Aside from being curated by Soren of LewdVRGames, each game page gives essential installation instructions, as well as links to Patreons. The one caveat to note is that many of these downloads are modified builds with some restricted access — like a demo++, with content still blocked off for subscriber exclusivity.

I’d perhaps weigh your preferences between VRPorn’s library versus a similar Itch.io bundle, though. Itch.io’s might be double the price, but for the most part includes full access game builds.

Platforms/Compatibility: Everything, except for Oculus Quest headset-only setups

Price: $19.95 for one month (which is all you’ll need to access the games)

Most customizable: Virt-A-Mate

Why it’s great: Ideal for creators, this is the most in-depth, most customizable and moddable sex simulator sandbox with an endless library of community content.

What it’s all about: When it comes to technical powerhouses of sex simulators, nothing beats Virt-A-Mate. But, with an in-game user menu that requires watching an hours-long YouTube tutorial playlist while referencing a Bible-length wiki, it’s not ideal for everyone or even most. VR and/or porn game beginners will be utterly lost simply trying to install the game, let alone navigating the sex community’s ever-expanding library of user-generated content.

I suggest newbies who still want to try skip going cold turkey into Virt-A-Mate and instead opt for the additional download of VamX, a user-made add-on package designed for more simplified user-friendliness that even comes with an in-game tutorial. You can either get it with a VRPorn Premium subscription or Patreon subscrption.

A serious word of caution before purchasing or becoming part of this community, however: A Vice report found that Virt-A-Mate was a source of extremely disturbing deepfake VR porn, giving players total control over the virtual bodies of women who did not consent to that. Virt-A-Mate has not addressed this concern publicly, but a OneZero article presents an alternative perspective on the ethics of this practice.

Platforms/Compatibility: Oculus Rift and Rift S, HTC Vive, Valve Index and Windows Mixed Reality, Oculus Quest via link cable or streaming

Price: Free demo of Teaser build, with full access to Entertainer and Creator builds requiring $4 or $8 monthly Patreon subscription (respectively)

Best for online multiplayer: 3DXChat

Why it’s great: This subscription-based adult online multiplayer platform gives access to countless virtual worlds for cybersex with VR integration during player-to-player sexual encounters.

What it’s all about: 3DXChat is predominantly a non-VR game, but it’s also one of the only online multiplayer titles expressively made for virtual reality sex games. The VR can only be activated during sex, and can honestly look pretty horrifying because it knocks your avatar’s head right off its body to accommodate your headset’s POV camera.

That being said, it’s got a decent but not overwhelming amount of character selection options, with tons of consideration for different identities, genders, orientations, and fetishes built-in. The enormous community, with its countless subworlds for virtual orgies, can be intimidating; I highly recommend beginners first get their feet wet with a computer-generated sexual partner. Though I could not test it myself, the game does claim integration with all Lovense Bluetooth-connected sex toys.

Caveats aside, I could see 3DX Chat being a great option for long-distance couples, folks wanting to slowly bring their virtual sexuality or gender-identity explorations into the real world, or perhaps even people who have certain disabilities and disorders that cause obstacles for having IRL sex.

Platforms/Compatibility: Oculus Rift and Rift S, HTC Vive, Valve Index and Windows Mixed Reality, Oculus Quest via link cable or streaming

Price: Free demo, with online subscription starting at $9.99 a month

Best adult VR community: VR Chat

Why it’s great: A thriving adult VR underground community is turning this popular Oculus-official online social game platform into a beautifully chaotic cybersex hornfest.

What it’s all about: If we let you in on one of virtual reality’s worst-kept secrets, will you promise to keep it on the DL? Well OK…VR Chat is low-key one of the fastest-growing, most beloved online multiplayer homes for lovers of adult virtual reality games around the globe.

Soren called it a “powerhouse” that’s currently “exploding,” publishing a guide on how to join the adult VR Chat community in the hopes of encouraging more folks to join. To be clear, VR Chat Is on the official Oculus app store and in no way explicitly for adult content. But those in the know can tell you exactly where to go to find erotic, community-built environments teaming with thirst trap-y, full-body, custom-modded NSFW avatars wanting a good time.

While Valens wishes there were more adult online VR games like VR Chat, she cautioned that it “opens up a ton of ethical questions worth exploring around multiplayer sexual experiences, consent, and personal boundaries in virtuality.” She’s written more on these tricky boundaries in other multiplayer game spaces.

Throwing yourself into the unknowns of erotic roleplay with virtual strangers and few established rules of conduct is a risk. Be sure to always participate with an escape route in mind in case you get uncomfortable, and be consistent about checking in on your fellow ERPers’ (erotic role players) boundaries and consent. For many marginalized folks, though, taking this virtual plunge is worth getting to embody parts of your erotic self that the real world oppresses, shames, and stigmatizes. Indeed, Valens has heard that “a fair amount of trans women” make up the VRChat ERP community.

Sure, these virtual sexcapades very likely skirt the lines of one prudish corporate policy or another — as most valuable sexual expression online does. But we certainly won’t tell Facebook if you don’t.

Platforms/Compatibility: Oculus Quest 1 and 2

Price: Free-to-play download with in-app and community-generated custom content available for purchase in many virtual marketplaces.

Best for hentai-style animation: Waifu Sex Simulator

Why it’s great: Realistic sex is nice and all, but have you tried a waifu banging sex sandbox with hot anime girls and the Wii Fit guy instead?

What it’s all about: This one pretty much says it all right in the title — but you’ll definitely need the download and instruction manual posted on VRPorn to figure out how to play Waifu Sex Simulator. While pretty janky and rudimentary compared to other sex simulators, this hentai classic by Lewd Fraggy has a special place in many, uh, hearts.

With over 1,000 models — many based on animated hotties from popular games, movies, and shows — you’re bound to find one of your faves, from Princess Peach to Genshin Impact characters. There are also 400 animations to cycle through, with a lot of sexual variety.

For something in between photorealism and anime-style VR porn games, check out adult games by Illusion like VR Kanojo (more of a girlfriend experience simulator) and the wildly popular (especially among queer women) Honey Select Unlimited.

Platforms/Compatibility: HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest via link cable or streaming, PCVR, Samsung Gear, Google Cardboard, PC non-VR

Price: Free download, with only bonus content kept behind a Patreon subscription

Best free demo: Fallen Dolls: Origin and Operation Lovecraft

Why it’s great: This is a simple, sexy, expansive free introduction into VR porn’s most popular category of photorealistic sex simulator sandboxes.

What it’s all about: A VR version of a recommendation from our regular porn games roundup, these two extensive free demos pack more than most public builds of similar quality titles. It’s also for a broad range of tastes, a perfect blend of an easy-to-use but still customizable poke-the-doll type virtual reality sex sandbox with decent controls to boot.

Be sure to remember that this is only a taste of Project Helius’ full two-part game series, with Operation Lovecraft described as “A Cthulhu mythos-inspired deck building rogue-lite game featuring a wider array of fetishes: monster, tentacles, futanari, BDSM, and vanilla.”

If you’re up for a free demo that’s more limited and censored, but with a tantalizing roleplay dynamic scenario, check out The Villain Simulator.

Platforms/Compatibility: PCVR, Oculus Rift and Rift S, HTC Vive, Windows Mixed Reality, Oculus Quest via link cable or streaming

Price: Free demos for Origin and Operation Lovecraft, then an accumulative $36 of Patreon subscription support for full access to all games

Best for sex toy integration: Viro Playspace

Why it’s great: Gives users an adult VR playground for sexual discovery and sex toy connectivity with experiences that are inclusive of a variety of perspectives, orientations, genders, and desires.

What it’s all about: Similar to Dominatrix Simulator, the purpose of Viro Playspace is to explore sexual fantasies you might not feel safe or comfortable embodying in real life (yet). Winner of Forbes’ 2019 Adult VR App of the Year award, it’s described as a sex-positive, consent-focused erotic playground platform. There are nine downloadable experiences (or “dreams”) you can purchase so far, the scenarios ranging from passive to active engagement, various positions, male and female POVs, and haptic feedback that corresponds the sexual stimulation happening in the scene with either a compatible Bluetooth-enabled sex toy or the VR controller’s vibrations. There’s plenty of standard heterosexual vanilla. But the most interesting scenes let you dabble in BDSM, furry, and LGBTQ-oriented desires.

According to the website, the team behind each experience included folks with the lived experiences, meaning it’s a furry fantasy made by furries or a woman’s fantasy made by women. Porn star and virtual reality pioneer Ela Darling, the team’s head of marketing, contributed to the Viro dreamscape she’s featured in as a character. Another scenario features V-Tuber (that’s “virtual YouTuber,” meaning a real-life human who gets digitized into an anime-style character) Vex Ruby, who has a permanent home on Viro’s platform as the “most advanced live LewdTube streamer.”

It’s a shame, though, that not a single one of the nine fantasies breaks from the heteronormative binary, excluding explicitly trans, gender fluid, or women loving women perspectives.

Also, a word of caution on sex-toy integration: We’ve reported on the glaring connectivity issues with many of the Bluetooth-enabled sex toys advertised on Viro, and our favorite, most affordable and reliable sextech toy company, Satisfyer, is not compatible. Despite owning nearly all the high-tech toys advertised as compatible, I still couldn’t get any of them to connect. After some troubleshooting and help from Viro, the connectivity was suspected of originating with my PC’s poor BLE Bluetooth integration, which requires a cheap USB Bluetooth adapter that I did not have.

But just getting a preview of what the haptics do to the VR controller’s vibration have me enticed. I imagine this is another good game to experiment with alongside a partner who’s outside of VR and can stimulate you (or vice versa) during the virtual experience.

Platforms/Compatibility: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Valve Index, PCVR, Windows Mixed Reality, Oculus Quest via link cable or streaming

Price: Free-to-play download with one free preview experience, with the rest purchasable on Steam for $5.99 each. You can support the project on Patreon for bonuses.

Best for a specific fetish: Heat

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Why it’s great: Even if you don’t identify as a furry, virtual reality porn is one of those things you just can’t knock until you’ve tried it.

What it’s about: I’m not one to seek out furry porn, but something about the medium of VR feels tailor-made to fulfill people’s most impossible sexual fantasies. While Heat is your relatively standard, early-in-development furry treatment to the usual poke-the-doll sex simulator, it’s also quite LGBTQ friendly, popular on Patreon, and the new rising star among furry VR games.

If you’re hungry for more, Valens recommends DragonlayerVR and the FurryVNE (formerly Yiffalicious 2). Or if you’re trying on a whole different fetish altogether, check out Resize Me, the giantess kink game.

Platforms/Compatibility: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Valve Index, PCVR, Windows Mixed Reality, Oculus Quest via link cable or streaming

Price: $10 a month Patreon subscription

Best webXR browser VR porn game: VR Ero-Beat

Why it’s great: Reminiscent of the golden era of web browser games from the early internet, this shows off the exciting potential for a VR porn browser game revolution with games that are much more widely accessible.

What it’s all about: While this list is sadly lacking in many native standalone Oculus Quest games, simple games that can be streamed directly onto your headset hint at a more accessible future for VR games that don’t require a PC. The VR Ero-Beat rhythm game in particular is charming and fun as hell, while still being pretty titillating.

“Because Facebook is very heavy-handed with its censorship, there’s a growing demand for WebVR games that can be played directly from the Oculus Quest browser,” said Soren. “These games don’t require a download so they are able to bypass sideloading headaches and Facebook.”

The biggest name in webXR adult VR games is currently RockHard VR, with five free virtual reality browser games ranging from standard sex simulators to this one, which is like a horny version of Beat Saber.

Platforms/Compatibility: HTC Vive, Oculus Quest 1 and 2, Oculus Rift, Oculus Go, Windows Mixed Reality

Price: Free

Keep reading

• A beginner’s guide to the best porn games

• How to watch VR porn: Everything you need to know

• Porn ushers in a golden age of TV dicks

• Can’t figure out what kind of porn to consume? This handy infographic can help

In a classic case of the internet going full internet, fans of Apple TV+’s hit show Ted Lasso have stumbled upon what appears to be a conspiracy of the highest order: that actor and writer Brett Goldsetin, who plays the curmudgeonly former football player Roy Kent, does not actually exist.

The theory, which had come up multiple times on Reddit and more recently crossed over to Twitter, hedges on the fact that Goldstein, well…looks really fake in some of Ted Lasso‘s footage. Starting in Season 1, Goldstein’s character Roy Kent allegedly looks “100% CGI” because he “glows on the screen” and looks “imported straight from FIFA.”

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The theory grew as people added their own “proof” that Roy Kent is CGI with clips of footage from Ted Lasso where he does, admittedly, look like a fake little man who lives in the computer.

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“Actor” Brett Goldstein finally responded to the rumors with a video statement on Twitter on Instagram in which he insisted he was a “completely real, normal human man who just happens to live in a VFX house and does normal human basic things like rendering and buffering.” Hm.

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In all seriousness, from the perspective of someone who has seen slightly unfinished screeners of many Ted Lasso episodes, the truth behind Roy Kent looking fake is that a lot more of the show’s sets and background are green screen and CGI than one might imagine.

For example, in that damning video above, recall that most of the football fields in the show are just normal fields with green screens set up along the perimeter so the VFX team can add LED billboards and replicated crowds. Even the indoor scenes, especially in some characters’ windowed offices, the “view” of the field is also green screen, so lots of characters have a moment or two where the lighting looks a bit off to the eagle-eyed watcher.

OK, did you all read that? Dope. Let me just grab my phone real quick to accept the huge sum of money a mysterious donor promised to drop into my Apple Pay account if I wrote this article. Easiest money I’ve ever made. (Editor’s note for anyone thinking of going full internet on this comment: Alexis is making a joke.)

Ted Lasso is streaming on AppleTV+

Some Facebook users who recently watched a Daily Mail video depicting Black men reported seeing a label from Facebook asking if they were interested in watching more videos about “primates.”

The label appeared in bold text under the video, stating “Keep seeing videos about Primates?” next to “Yes” and “Dismiss” buttons that users could click to answer the prompt. It’s part of an AI-powered Facebook process that attempts to gather information on users’ personal interests in order to deliver relevant content into their News Feed.

The video in question showed several instances of white men calling the police on Black men and the resulting events, and had nothing to do with primates. Facebook issued an apology, telling the New York Times that it was an “unacceptable error” and that it was looking into ways to prevent this happening in the future.

The label came to Facebook’s attention when Darci Groves, a former Facebook content design manager, posted it to a product feedback forum for current and former Facebook employees and shared it on Twitter. Groves said that a friend came across the label and screenshotted and shared it with her.

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The offensive label feels particularly unacceptable considering the extremely expansive database of user-uploaded photos that Facebook has access to, and could presumably use to ensure proper facial recognition by its tools. While AI can always make mistakes, it is the company’s responsibility to properly train its algorithms, and this misstep cannot be blamed on a lack of resources.

In addition to mishandling past racial justice issues within the company, Facebook’s lack of transparent plan to address its AI problem continues to sow distrust. While the apology was needed, the company’s lack of apparent actionable steps beyond disabling the feature and a vague promise to “prevent this from happening again” doesn’t cut it.

The approach is especially lackluster following Facebook’s recent move to cut off researchers’ access to tools and accounts used to explore user data and ad activity on the platform, citing possible violation of a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC has directly disputed that defense.

Combining a vague response with decreased access to facts makes it rather hard to simply trust that Facebook will handle this inappropriate AI gaffe with any kind of immediacy or results. If Facebook is committed to creating and using AI tools in an inclusive manner, it needs to specify exactly how it plans to fix this issue, and it needs to do so soon.

All that emptiness in outer space leaves lots of room for gorgeous galactic fireworks shows.

What you’re seeing here, according to NASA, is a “relatively rare celestial phenomenon” called a Herbig-Haro object. It’s created when ionized gas expelled by a young star collides with the clouds of dust and gas that surround these new (relatively speaking) stellar formations.

This Herbig-Haro object, named HH111, comes to us compliments of the Hubble Space Telescope and its Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3).

The expelled gas is ionized by a young star when the intense heat in these regions of space causes the atoms and molecules making up the gas to lose their electrons. That charged gas speeds away from its source, and it collides with the physical matter surrounding the young star as it goes. These collisions create the streaking bursts of light you see in HH111, and they’re the building blocks of Herbig-Haro objects in general.

This view of HH111 was made possible by Hubble’s WFC3 because of how it captures light. As NASA explains, while Herbig-Haro objects are visible inside the optical range that human eyes can detect, all that dust and gas around the star makes that light difficult to see. But the WFC3 picks up light along the ultraviolet and infrared spectrums as well, and the latter in particular is useful for cutting through the stellar debris.

The result is this beautiful, blue-tinged streak of light cutting across space. A Hubble report from more than two decades ago describes how a cosmic tug-of-war between three stars led to the creation of this Herbig-Haro object.

This is a story about the power of redemption. Everyone makes mistakes in life and sometimes those mistakes warrant blocking someone on Facebook.

You’d better mean business, because when you block someone, your Facebook friendship is automatically ended. But if you are suddenly possessed by the spirit of generosity, there is a way to forgive and forget. It’s called unblocking someone on Facebook.

To be clear, unblocking someone means that they can see what you post publicly, but it does not mean that you are now Facebook friends with them. To do that, you must go the extra step of sending them a friend request. Facebook’s help center has more info on adding friends and blocking.

How to unblock someone on Facebook

To unblock someone on Facebook, click the little downward-facing arrow in the top right corner of the screen.

In the drop-down, click “Settings & Privacy” then “Settings.”

That will take you to a new page with all of your account settings. In the lefthand column, click on “Blocking.” That will take you to the section where you can manage users, messages, pages, etc. that you’ve blocked.

In the “Block users” subsection, you can see a list of everyone that you’ve blocked. Next to the name of each blocked user is a button saying “Unblock.”

Click that to unblock someone, and then click “Confirm” in the window that pops up to complete the action.

At this rate, actually seeing a Cybertruck on the streets may be the stuff of legend.

On a company call with Tesla employees, Elon Musk confirmed that the Cybertruck isn’t expected to go into production until late 2022, and volume production may not ramp up until late 2023, according to Electrek.

This latest timeline update comes after the Tesla website quietly changed its fine print to indicate that the Cybertruck would be coming in 2022, rather than late 2021 as previously promised. The delay wasn’t entirely surprising, as Musk had tweeted about the manufacturing and supply chain issues that had plagued the company, most likely pandemic-related.

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While not unexpected, the “late” part of “late 2022” is disappointing to the more than 1.25 million customers who pre-ordered the Cybertruck by Aug. 2021.

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While the extra year should be enough to finally deliver on the Cybertruck promise, perhaps Tesla buyers shouldn’t hold their breath. The Cybertruck is expected to be built at the Gigafactory Texas, Tesla’s new factory in Austin. The only problem? The Gigafactory is still under construction itself.

It might be a tad difficult to get the Cybertruck into consumers’ hands if the very industrial unit that makes it needs to finish being made first.

Want to get your pulse racing and your spine tingling? Maybe you need something spooky as an excuse to cuddle up closer to your crush? Or perhaps you want to test your mettle with some supremely creepy cinema? Whatever your reasons, Paramount+ has a thrilling library of movies perfect for a scary night in.

Below, we’ve collected the highlights across a wide field of horror films. Whether you’re on the hunt for vicious zombies, sinister slashers, creepy critters, merciless monsters, modern hits, or chilling classics with stars like Vincent Price and Béla Lugosi, we’ve got what you want.

Here are the 10 best scary movies now available on Paramount+.

1. A Quiet Place

John Krasinski went from actor to celebrated horror director with this spine-tingling 2018 hit. Starring opposite his real-life wife Emily Blunt, The Office star plays a farmer, dedicated to protecting his family from killer creatures that hunt by sound. This clever premise means the movie’s characters can’t scream, because such a sound would definitely be their last. That means your own sounds of terror are weaponized while watching, crashing into the silent soundscape that’s suffocating in tension.

Ruthlessly paced and keenly realized, A Quiet Place is a superbly scary thrill ride. But what makes it top-tier are the poignant performances by Krasinski, Blunt, and their onscreen children, Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe. Together, they make a family-frightening feature that’s perfect for a quiet night at home. And if you dare to double-feature, the spooky sequel, A Quiet Place: Part II, is also available.

How to watch: A Quiet Place is streaming on Paramount+

2. Night of the Living Dead

There’s a horde of zombie movies to be found on Paramount+, from Bela Lugosi’s classic White Zombie, to the gleefully schlocky Overlord, to the studio-made epic World War Z. But the best of the bunch is George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead.

This 1968 independent film defined the zombie horror genre for generations. Its slow, shuffling undead with a ravenous hunger for human flesh were chillingly brought to “life” through eerie performances and grisly practical effects make-up that would become a revolting requirement. The frightening film follows a band of strangers, who huddle together in a remote farm house in a clumsy attempt to escape the clutches of cannibalistic reanimated corpses.

Shot in stark black-and-white and featuring heightened performances, it feels of its time. Yet the scares within are timeless.

How to watch: Night of the Living Dead is streaming on Paramount+

3. Saint Maud

In 2020, writer/helmer Rose Glass made a jaw-dropping directorial debut with this riveting psychological horror film. In a squalid seaside town, Maud (Morfydd Clark) is a pious young nurse who is fanatically dedicated to God. Hired as a private hospice caretaker for dying artist Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), Maud develops a dark fascination for her patient’s lust for life, booze, and Sapphic sex.

Their volatile bond is electric with temptation and conflict, which ignites as Maud steps up her quest to save Amanda’s soul. A battle of wills bends into the surreal as visual effects and a sound design reflect the world from Maud’s perspective. Punctuated with goosebump-pumping violence, swaddled in a sophisticated color palette of warmth and rot, and threaded by inky sexual tension, Saint Maud is uniquely intoxicating and unnerving experience that’ll leave you in horrified awe.

How to watch: Saint Maud is streaming on Paramount+

4. Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?

As the glamor starlets of Hollywood’s Golden Age began to grow old, horror saw the rise of the psycho biddy subgenre. Stars like Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, and Shelley Winters leaned into their age and their boldness to play tragically flawed anti-heroines, whose lives were streaked with terror.

In this freaky yet festive example from director Curtis Harrington, Winters stars as a wealthy and eccentric widow, who invites the local orphans to spend Christmas in her home. Things take a grisly Hansel & Gretel turn, when two troublesome siblings suspect beloved Auntie Roo isn’t what she seems. Whether you’re craving creepy kids, fractured fairy tales, holiday horror, or a psycho biddy, Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? presents it all with a technicolor flare.

How to watch: Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? is streaming on Paramount+

5. A Bucket of Blood

Two prolific horror icons collide in this quirky classic. Roger Corman was a pioneer of American independent cinema, churning out scads of low-budget but wildly entertaining horror movies. Dick Miller was a character actor, who’d pop up in such popular pics as Gremlins, Piranha, The Howling, Chopping Mall, and The ‘Burbs. In this 1959 collaboration; however, Miller was the star, playing a simple-minded busboy who dreamed of being part of the hip beatnik scene.

Alas, none of the artists, poets, or free-loving dames at the coffee shop where he works will give him the time of day. That is until an accidental murder of a cat (think Polonius in Hamlet) leads to a macabre sculpture that blows the snooty lot away. Though stippled with grisly elements, A Bucket of Blood is at its core a satire of the ‘50s art scene. As such, it’s glossed in a smirking sense of humor that’s devilish fun.

How to watch: A Bucket of Blood is streaming on Paramount+

6. Arachnophobia

Want a creature feature that’ll make your skin crawl? Then check out Frank Marshall’s 1990 hit, which centers on an exotic spider making a sprawling web across a cozy American community. Jeff Daniels stars as the new doctor in town, who suspects an eight-legged assassin might be to blame for a spade of grisly deaths. He gets push back from an array of quirky characters, including an arrogant exterminator (memorably played by John Goodman). But when spiders start scurrying into showers, bowls of popcorn, and out of a dead man’s nose, there’s no denying infestation!

Along with squicky scares, Arachnophobia boasts a sly sense of humor that had critics celebrating it as a cheeky ode to the B-movies of the atomic age. But who needs giant radioactive insects, when swarms of fanged spiders are plenty scary?

How to watch: Arachnophobia is streaming on Paramount+

7. The Town That Dreaded Sundown

Since Alfred Hitchcock’s seminal Psycho, the slasher subgenre has had deep, dark ties to true-crime. This 1976 cult classic, which features a hooded serial killer, was inspired by the infamous and unsolved Texarkana Moonlight Murders. In 1946, the Phantom Killer stalked the teens of this Arkansas town, torturing, maiming, and murdering. Director Charles B. Pierce and writer Earl E. Smith played fast and loose with the facts of the crimes, delivering re-enactments rife with horrific hyperbole.

However, some chilling choices bring an air of eerie authenticity to the film. It was shot on location in Texarkana, featured real-life locals in small roles, and offered an ominous narrator (Vern Stierman) to usher audiences through the carnage as if this were a documentary. Imagine Unsolved Mysteries with a vicious bloodlust and a weaponized trombone, and you’ll have some idea what’s to come when the sun goes down.

How to watch: The Town That Dreaded Sundown is streaming on Paramount+

8. Pet Sematary

Stephen King has long been heralded the king of horror novels. His Pet Sematary was a book so scary that it’s been adapted to the big screen twice. The first came in 1989, yet this 2019 version is less a remake and more a reimagining. Instead of retreading the gruesome path of the original, directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer make surprising turns to keep the thrills fresh and frightening — but still deliciously ghoulish!

Jason Clarke and Amy Seimetz star as parents happy to move their young children away from the bustling of a big city to a quaint Maine town. The locals are odd but friendly. (Shout out to a perfectly morose John Lithgow.) Their house is lovely, but its location proves full of dangers and deadly temptations. Then, this dreamy family’s waking nightmare begins when a dead cat is resurrected. From there, things grow more monstrous and moldering.

How to watch: Pet Sematary is streaming on Paramount+

9. Cry of the Banshee

If you treasure the deranged delights of movies like Midsommar, The Wicker Man, and The Witch, then you appreciate the perturbing pleasures found in folk horror. Thrillingly, Paramount+ boasts two of the foundational films in this subgenre, 1971’s The Blood On Satan’s Claw and 1970’s Cry of the Banshee. Both are British productions that deliver spooky tales of superstition and the supernatural, but only the latter also boasts horror icon Vincent Price.

Here, the mesmerizing star with a penetrating stare and a sinisterly syrupy voice plays a ruthless witch hunter whose brutality sparks a devilish comeuppance upon his entire family. Dark magic, violence, nudity, madness, and theatrical declarations (and damnations) come into play in this Elizabethan-era set tale, splashed with bright red blood.

How to watch: Cry of the Banshee is streaming on Paramount+

10. Invisible Ghost

Béla Lugosi was one of the first legends of horror films, starring in such classics as Dracula, The Black Cat, and The Raven. Lesser-known but nonetheless exciting is this twisted tale of marital strife and murder.

Joseph H. Lewis’s 1941 classic begins with a bizarre dinner, during which the eccentric Dr. Charles Kessler (Lugosi) toasts an invisible guest, his wife who went missing years before. Sometimes she still appears to the haunted doctor, driving him to act out in heinous violence. While his worried daughter, her mysterious fiancé, and a spooked house staff play detective (or die trying), Kessler horrifies the audience not only with his slaughter, but also through Lugosi’s disturbing gaze and bone-rattling intensity.

With a gothic flare and a fiendish finale, Invisible Ghost is an old-fashioned but spooky bit of fun.

How to watch: Invisible Ghost is streaming on Paramount+