If you’re looking for something spooky to fiddle with this weekend to get in the Halloween spirit, Night Terrors: Bloody Mary ($0.99) is among the cooler things I’ve seen, particularly in the augmented reality world. It was made with the help of the people behind the 2007 horror movie Paranormal Activity, which I’d still argue is one of the best “modern" horror movies that have been released. I just recently rewatched it, and that flick still holds up really well. The sequels? Not so much, but that’s the case of any franchise that gets milked to death.

Anyway, Night Terrors: Bloody Mary is an augmented reality experience that uses all the ARKit magic to render spooky stuff in your house themed after the Bloody Mary urban legend, which I remember being quite a thing when I was younger. It reminds me a lot of the AR counterpart to IT: Escape from Pennywise VR game that we posted about a while ago. Night Terrors similarly leans hard into spooky sounds and jump scares.

The developer’s YouTube channel has all sorts of other videos of the game as well as a series of interview videos if you want to dive into the nitty gritty of how the game was made. As an adult, I look at things like Night Terrors: Bloody Mary as another real cool example of what’s possible in the world of AR, but holy cow, thinking back to myself back at sleepover parties where Bloody Mary challenges were actually being thrown out…

…This app/game would’ve straight up terrified me.