With a VHS box trumpeting, “Features ‘virtual reality’ special effects!” (which is just slightly more intriguing than “Features an awkwardly post-pubescent Peter Billingsley!”), the 1993 horror cheapie Arcade attempted to update Tron’s “evil sentient videogame” plot for the CD-ROM age. Arcade took a far darker turn than Disney, using the suicide of Megan Ward’s mom as a catalyst for her descent into Dante’s Inferno, the not-so-subtle name of the video arcade where a new virtual-reality console—simply titled “Arcade”—soon begins claiming her friends’ lives. Unfortunately, Arcade producers Full Moon Entertainment didn’t have Disney money, so instead of Tron’s elegant light grids, the obviously green-screened virtual-reality landscapes Ward is forced to fight (and skateboard) her way out of resemble Windows 3.0-era screensavers, with Ward seemingly always in danger of attack by a flying toaster. Screenwriter David S. Goyer and two of Ward’s co-stars, and A.J. Langer, went on to better things, but otherwise, Arcade didn’t offer much of a glimpse into the future.
