The immersive nature of virtual reality has proven to be good at a lot of different things, but the one thing it's exceptional at is terrifying the the living hell out of you.
Creaky doors, wind-like whispers and soul-crushing dread are perfectly at home in a VR experience. There's no better time to experience true horror than around Halloween, when celebrating terror by dressing up and eating lots of candy is all the rage. Now, you can strap on your Oculus Rift, HTC Vive or PlayStation VR too.
Read this: The best VR headsets
So if you're dying to wrap yourself in a blanket of spooky VR games for the night, whether you're alone in the dark or celebrating at a Halloween party, read on for our favorite terribly wonderful horror experiences.
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
Still probably the largest VR game of them all, as the entire game is playable in VR, Resident Evil 7 will place you in a scenario familiar to horror fans: You're stuck in a house with a bunch of cannibalistic psychos in the middle of nowhere. You'll have to crouch, run and hide as you try to escape the family home with limited resources. Resident evil, indeed.
Platform: PlayStation VR
, playstationstore.com | Amazon
IT: FLOAT
This experience is a nice complement to one of the more popular pieces of horror of the year, the new movie adaptation of Stephen King's IT. It puts you right into some of the best sequences of the movie, including from the eyes of poor, adorable Georgie in the opening to the sewers. Yes, that means going face to face with Pennywise the Dancing Clown. You'll float too.
Platforms: YouTube 360, Google Cardboard, Facebook 360, Samsung Gear VR, Jaunt VR
Free, ITthemovie.com
Stranger Things VR
The mornings may be for coffee and contemplation, but Halloween 2017 is for VR and Stranger Things. What better way to get ready to binge season 2 than to scare yourself silly with the VR experience, which puts you into one of the more iconic scenes from the first season.
Platforms: Google Cardboard and Samsung Gear VR
Free, strangerthings.com
Affected: The Manor
Affected is one of the original horror VR experiences, debuting as a demo for the Oculus Rift DK1 back in the day. More recently, it's been completely remastered for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive after having a successful run on Gear VR. You'll explore a manor, experiencing unfolding events and making choices that'll lead to one of four alternate endings.
Platforms: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Samsung Gear VR, Daydream View
, Steam
, Oculus
A Chair in a Room
This horrific experience takes advantage of Vive's room-scale technology to adapt to your play area. If you've got a small room, you get teleportation. If you have a bigger area, you get to walk around a little more on this terrifying journey through the gothic world of the deep south. Your hauntings grow stronger as you piece together what happened to you, and the only thing to keep you sane is your medication.
Platform: HTC Vive, Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR
, Steam
The Conjuring 2 - Experience Enfield
Consider this a sampling of what to expect when you settle down for the night, turn off all the lights and decide to watch The Conjuring 2. You'll get a nice preview of many of the scares in the movie, but they're all different enough that they all remain unspoiled. Seriously, it's hard not to want to watch, or re-watch, the movie after seeing this.
Platforms: YouTube 360, Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR
Free, theconjuring2.com
Until Dawn: Rush of Blood
A spinoff of the critically acclaimed Until Dawn, Rush of Blood takes you to a creepy amusement park where you're stuck on creepy rollercoasters as you shoot terrifying things. Like clowns. And psychos in strange masks. You may start shooting targets on a rollercoaster, but you'll end hoping that the ride will just stop so you can take a breath.
Platform: PlayStation VR
How we test
By Husain Sumra
Husain joined Wareable in 2017 as a member of our San Fransisco based team. Husain is a movies expert, and runs his own blog, and contributes to MacRumors.
He has spent hours in the world of virtual reality, getting eyes on Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Samsung Gear VR.
At Wareable, Husain's role is to investigate, report and write features and news about the wearable industry – from smartwatches and fitness trackers to health devices, virtual reality, augmented reality and more.
He writes buyers guides, how-to content, hardware reviews and more.