There are many practical uses for the Apple ARKit, and scaring the living daylights out of your children is most certainly one of them. 

Sadako is the poster child of Japanese horror films. Ever since her on-screen (and literally “off-screen”) debut in 1998’s Ring, followed by her American counterpart Samara’s debut in the 2002 Hollywood remake The Ring, the pinnacle of horror has been associated with a long-haired specter dressed in white crawling out of your TV screen to scare the crap out of you.

…Wanna have some fun with that scene?

Thanks to augmented reality (“AR”) builders, such as the Apple ARKit, now anyone can create apps on their portable devices to blend the real world with virtual objects. AR is perhaps most famous for its presence in the smartphone game Pokémon Go, but the sky is really the limit when it comes to the number of possible ways it can be adapted for both educational and entertainment purposes. For example, you can even recreate that exact scene from Ring/The Ring in the comfort of your own home, as YouTuber Mike Woods showed the world:

Even though your brain is telling you that it’s AR, you can’t help but feel an icy jolt of terror when Samara seemingly materializes from the screen, synchronized to the shrieks of Mike’s kids. Although the most horrifying aspect of the whole video is perhaps that it was filmed vertically…

If that wasn’t enough to raise the hairs on your arm, here’s another The Ring AR-enhanced gem by Twitter user @shekitup:

While Sadako/Samara’s design here isn’t quite as detailed as in the previous example, it does have the contortionist-like, uninterrupted crawl and hallway-chase scene for added terror.

Huh. After watching both of those examples, I, for one, will stick with using AR exclusively for catching Pikachu and pals.

Sources: YouTube/Mike Woods, Apple
Featured image: YouTube/Mike Woods
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