What’s on TV
ESCAPE ROOM (2019) 8:45 p.m. on Starz. The phenomenon of escape room games, where players pay to be locked in a room of puzzles, is mixed with the classic horror movie setup of strangers put in sinister circumstances in this thriller. The setup involves a group of players assembled for an escape-room challenge. The fact that the consequence for failure is death is a surprising revelation for the characters; given that this is a horror movie called “Escape Room,” that information is likely to be less surprising for potential viewers. “There are intimations of ‘Tales From the Crypt,’ ‘Final Destination,’ ‘The Game,’ and other older, better films here,” Ben Kenigsberg wrote in his review for The New York Times. “This movie never catches a fire like any of those did, and even its twist coda feels dreary and pro forma. But the movie is keeping me even further away from real-life escape rooms than I already had been.”
POLTERGEIST (2015) 11:15 p.m. on FXM. Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt star as a married couple fallen on hard times in this reimagined take on the 1982 horror classic. As in the old movie, the plot is anchored by a family, a haunted home and a creepy TV. “All in all there’s not much to complain about here, except that — as with a lot of revisited classics — the story’s not as revolutionary as you remember it,” Neil Genzlinger wrote in his review for The Times. “For veterans of the 1982 ‘Poltergeist,’ it’s more like scary but pleasant nostalgia.”
What’s Streaming
OPERATION FINALE (2018) Stream on Amazon and Hulu. Ben Kingsley plays the high-ranking Nazi Adolf Eichmann in this drama, which chronicles Eichmann’s 1960 capture by Israeli secret agents. The operation involved agents traveling to South America, where Eichmann was in hiding, and bringing him to Israel. It’s a slippery mission made more difficult by the fact that the agents were bringing with them their own memories of friends and family killed by the Germans. That emotional balancing act is principally portrayed here by Oscar Isaac, who stars opposite Kingsley as one of those Mossad agents. “The performances are as solid as the writing and direction,” A.O. Scott wrote in his review for The Times. “‘Operation Finale’ resembles a drama from the first golden age of television, back in the ’50s,” he added. “Its seriousness is more than a little square, and its tackling of weighty moral issues feels more conscientious than truly challenging.”
IT (2017) Rent on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu and YouTube. It’s late August, the first whiffs of fall are in the air and the killer clown Pennywise (Bill Skarsgard) is cracking a wide grin over the horizon. With “It Chapter Two” hitting theaters next week, now is a good time to revisit the first installment of the story, adapted from the novel by Stephen King.
Gabe Cohn writes about television, fine art, film and other topics related to culture and the arts. He joined The Times in 2017.
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