Entertainment
Disturbing YouTube Series Will Force You To Document Your Dreams
By Robert Scucci
| Published
Some of my favorite horror entries live on YouTube and are created by up-and-coming filmmakers who have not yet seen their big break. Series like Alex Kister’s The Mandela Catalogue, Steven Chamberlain’s No Through Road, and channels like Bitesized Nightmares and Kepther e, in my opinion, are leading the charge when it comes to the new wave of found footage and analog horror. I am drawn to this corner of the genre because of how visceral it feels, largely because these videos are framed as legitimate uploads that you are not necessarily supposed to be watching.
Given my fondness for this brand of horror, the almighty algorithm eventually led me to a relatively new series known as VCR Willie, which started making its rounds on YouTube this past November. Updated sporadically by YouTube creator Alexanderthetitan, with videos ranging from eight to 20 minutes, VCR Willie plays like a found footage experiment but has far more going on beneath the surface. The key distinction is that the footage we are seeing was not voluntarily recorded, but instead documented by Alex, the owner of the channel.
A Chronicle Of Nightmares
VCR Willie keeps you in the dark until its fourth entry, “NAK,” where Alex finally addresses his audience and explains what is happening to him. Alex, if we take everything he says at face value and suspend our disbelief for a moment, claims he was living a normal life until he woke up from a lucid dream where he discovered a Sony Handycam sitting in his closet. When he wakes up, he realizes the camera is physically there in his house, despite being a make and model he has never owned.
Things get even stranger when Alex finds a tape already inside the camera but has no way to play it, which leads him to send it out to be digitized. Once he receives the file and watches it, he realizes the footage is exactly what he has been seeing in his recent dreams. Every time he wakes up, the process repeats. A new tape appears in the camera, he sends it off to be digitized, and then reviews what was captured. It is heavily implied that Alex himself is behind the camera in the footage, as the people he interacts with refer to him by name.
Mimics, Shadow People, And Apartment 40
The footage itself, which is not presented in a clean chronological order, begins to paint a picture of what is happening in Alex’s alleged dream world. He is paid by a woman named Scarlet to document her boyfriend Jared’s increasingly strange behavior. Scarlet insists that while the person looks exactly like her boyfriend, it is not actually him, but rather an entity mimicking his appearance to deceive her. The real Jared is hiding inside her apartment, cowering in fear, while another version of him stands outside, trying to get in while pretending to be the real thing.
Most of the videos in VCR Willie follow this same basic structure in different variations. They are almost always set in what appears to be the same apartment during different time periods and with different occupants. Someone hires Alex to document unsettling events involving a real person and their mimic, and the line between who is real and who is not grows more difficult to define as the series progresses.
The mimics themselves vary depending on how far along they are in replacing their subject. Some appear nearly complete, while others still feel unfinished, as if they are learning how to pass. One recurring detail, at least so far, is that they all offer Alex water at some point. They prefer to drink straight from the tap, but they always direct him toward the water cooler in the far corner of the kitchen, often referring to it as “the good water.”
The most recent uploads in the series, with “VHS NIGHT” being the latest entry as of January 18, 2026, push the story into increasingly violent territory. It feels as though the mimics are tightening their grip on the narrative itself, subtly pressuring Alex to join them.
A Visceral Thrill Like Nothing You’ve Ever Seen Before
What keeps me coming back to VCR Willie is how it sidesteps many of the genre’s most familiar beats. There is shaky camera work, the occasional jump scare, and all the expected trappings of found footage, but there is an added layer of unease that is difficult to explain. The people Alex interacts with feel dangerous and welcoming at the same time. They will casually chat with a smile, then suddenly shift into something hostile, storm off into another room, and peek back around the corner as if they believe they are hidden, despite standing in plain sight.
For the first time in a long while, I found myself watching through my fingers because I genuinely have no idea what kind of horrors Alex is walking into inside this apartment. Throughout every video, there is a persistent feeling that I am being watched as well. The idea that these tapes originate from an alternate dream world that does not intersect with Alex’s waking life only makes it more unsettling. In my mind, the mimics have not crossed over yet, but it feels inevitable, and that possibility adds another layer of dread to the experience.
VCR Willie feels like a breath of fresh air in a genre that often leans on familiar frameworks. We receive the creator’s explanation early on, and everything that follows is left to our imagination as we wait for the next update. It is a genuinely exciting time to be a horror fan when creators like Alexanderthetitan have the freedom to push boundaries without studio interference, resulting in some of the most unsettling horror being produced right now.
Entertainment
Super Bowl LX performers: Who is singing the anthems
The Super Bowl LX halftime show featuring Bad Bunny and the Super Bowl pre-show featuring Green Day may be taking up all the attention when it comes to Super Bowl performances — and rightfully so! Everyone is looking forward to what the internationally known artists will do or say regarding President Trump and ICE.
However, other musical artists are performing at this year’s Super Bowl as well.
Charlie Puth to sing national anthem
Kicking the show off with the U.S. national anthem “The Star-Spangled Banner” is the Grammy-nominated singer Charlie Puth. Puth’s debut single, “Marvin Gaye,” featuring Meghan Trainor, was a Billboard chart hit upon its 2015 release. Puth has since had other hits, including “We Don’t Talk Anymore (feat. Selena Gomez),” “Attention,” and “Nothing But Trouble.”
Mashable Top Stories
Brandi Carlile to perform patriotic song
Next up, singing “America the Beautiful” is singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile. Carlile has a whopping 11 Grammys and two Emmy awards. Her biggest hit was 2007’s “The Story,” but she is also known for songs like “Broken Horses” and “The Joke.”
Coco Jones to sing Black national anthem
Grammy Award-winning R&B artist Coco Jones will sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” also known as the Black national anthem. “Lift Every Voice and Sing” has become a Super Bowl staple since 2021, when Alicia Keys performed it at the event. Singer and actress Ledisi performed the song at last year’s game.
Entertainment
How A Star Wars Set Malfunction Caused A Cast Member To Meet Jesus
By Chris Snellgrove
| Updated
Would you believe that arguably the most recognizable figure in the entire Star Wars franchise once ran into Jesus? This was no Jedi, although it’s admittedly fun to imagine what the Son of God might have had to say to someone else who could come back from the dead as a powerful ghost. No, the Star Wars character in question was R2-D2, and he had an accidental meeting with the divine when a remote control malfunction sent him to the set of Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth tv movie!
A long time ago (1977, to be precise), in a desert far, far away (Tunisia), two very different filmmakers were working on two very different projects. Franco Zeffirelli (best known for his Oscar-nominated Romeo and Juliet) was working on Jesus of Nazareth, which blended the four Gospels of the biblical New Testament into a single TV movie. Meanwhile, fresh off the success of American Graffiti, rebel filmmaker George Lucas was working on Star Wars, a movie that would effectively define his life while reshaping pop culture history as we know it.
Meeting The Maker
Aside from the involvement of James Earl Jones, these projects didn’t have much in common, and Lucas and Zeffirelli generally stayed out of each other’s way despite their sets neighboring one another. That all changed thanks to a scene requiring R2-D2 to be piloted using a remote control. While actor Kenny Baker was often inside the droid for scenes where R2 had to stay relatively still, there were some scenes in which George Lucas simply needed to move the little astromech from Point A to Point B.
In this case, Lucas intended for R2-D2 to exit a scene by rolling out from behind a sand dune. To do this, they intended to use a remote control, but the unit malfunctioned. Therefore, instead of stopping where the filmmakers intended, R2 just kept going until (as if guided by a higher power) he ended up on the set of Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth.
Fortunately, the runaway astromech didn’t cause any damage to the set of the Jesus TV movie, something that we can only assume would be some kind of sin. These days, the whole incident has become a bit of amusing trivia for Star Wars fans to share among themselves. At the time, though, R2 encountering a savior from heaven was just one more reason that filming this sci-fi blockbuster had become a living hell.
When Droids Move In Mysterious Ways
Reportedly, this is one of many incidents in which the droids weren’t doing exactly what the filmmakers needed them to do. On top of that, the droids were powered by exotic batteries that were hard to replace, and those batteries were soon drained in the hot Tunisian sun. Making matters worse, the truck storing R2-D2 and other droids once caught fire, damaging valuable props and costing George Lucas money he couldn’t really afford to spend.
Fortunately, it all worked out: after all these onset issues, Star Wars became one of the most successful films ever made. There are many reasons for this, including its perfect cast, killer effects, and charming story. However, we can’t discount the possibility that the movie’s success is a product of divine intervention; after all, his excursion to meet Jesus proves R2-D2 is a droid with friends in very high places!
Entertainment
Who is the Super Bowls Black national anthem singer Coco Jones?
“Lift Every Voice and Sing,” also known as the Black national anthem, has been sung at every Super Bowl since 2021, when Alicia Keys performed the song.
This year, at Super Bowl LX, Coco Jones will perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
So, who is Coco Jones?
Mashable Top Stories
Coco Jones is a Grammy Award-winning R&B artist. In 2024, she was nominated for 5 Grammys and won one award for Best R&B Performance for her platinum-certified song “ICU.” She earned two more Grammy nominations in 2025 and was nominated for Best R&B Album at this year’s award show.
The artist’s father, Mike Jones, is a former pro football player. Jones was an NFL linebacker who played for the New England Patriots, St. Louis Rams, and Tennessee Titans.
If you’re not familiar with Coco Jones as an R&B artist, she might look familiar to you if you watched the Peacock series Bel-Air. Jones is the actor who played Hillary Banks on the drama that reimagined the Will Smith sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. As a child actor, she was also a well-known Disney Channel star, appearing in So Random!, Good Luck Charlie, and the Disney Channel Original Movie Let It Shine.
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