Black Mirror - Playtest

So you have American tourist, Cooper (Wyatt Russell), on a serious vacation that takes him to a number of attraction hotspots, but it is his final stop in the UK, where he meets Sonja (Hannah John-Kamen), he realizes that money was drawn from his credit card leaving him broke. He needs to take a quick job in the area in order to have the funds to pay for a plane ride back home. He hits upon an app that leads him to popular game maestro, Shou (Ken Yamamura), of the SaitoGemu company. Once there he is to be a human guinea pig for a potential neural game which plugs into the brain and pulls from it the person’s greatest fears in order to scare him or her within a one of a kind horror experience. Still in preliminary stages, Cooper’s experience will go a long way to determine how refined the terror/fear game is. Katie (Wunmi Mosaku) is Shou’s operations manager, and she is the voice for Cooper while he’s “under”. She would step in if Cooper wants to “end” the game if it gets too intense. Cooper lost his father to Alzheimer’s and that is ultimately his greatest fear…to have his brain “overwritten”. Having trouble contacting his mom, even at the urging of Sonja, Cooper holds off, deciding to wait until he sees her in person again. But will Cooper see ‘mum’ again?

Wyatt is portrayed as playful, somewhat wide-eyed adult kid. Excitable and chatty, Cooper talks away as he’s introduced by Katie to Shou, quite anticipating whatever gaming experience that might be available to him…and for payment, no less. Then injected with the game into his neck that soon works into his mind, Cooper is happy-go-lucky until the fears start to increasingly up the ante, becoming so real he can’t determine where the game ends. Sonja shows up to warn him about the dangers of the game and Cooper dismisses her, and her attack on him gets just a bit too realistic. He can touch her body, feel the stab of a knife, and buries her distorted face into the blade. Experiencing Alzheimer’s himself doesn’t help matters. The irony of a phone turned on being the catalyst in his unfortunate fate, Cooper couldn’t help but take a picture of the gaming device meant to inject him into something quite dangerous…and still flawed. The hybrid bully/spider is a special effect that isn’t altogether the most impressive but it sure is ugly. And the roller coaster Cooper goes on really signifies the dangers of the all too real gaming experience. Tampering with the fears of individuals by going right into the mind should raise concern for anyone before playing the game doing it. But Cooper is game for the experience, not too bothered by the potential for something disastrous. And he suffers accordingly.