February 3, 2025
Armstrong’s chilling debut, set in 1982 and featuring an arcade game with a disturbing impact on those who play it, impresses in its skillful combination of supernatural horror and believable characterization. Northern California’s Tasker Bay is “a place where people spent their evenings and weekends, not where they made a living or contributed anything meaningful to the world.” Its residents’ unremarkable lives are upended after Thomas Mazzy’s salvage company is assigned to scavenge what’s been abandoned in a video game manufacturer’s warehouse. Among the haul is a mysterious coin-operated game, Polybius, which Mazzy gives a new home at Tasker Bay’s Home Video World, a rental shop. The multiple advanced features, including enhanced video and sound, and immersive play makes it incredibly popular, despite its dire effects on players, who find themselves losing track of time, seeing things that aren’t there, and having violent thoughts. As the danger increases, culminating in horrific mutilations and murder, two socially awkward teenagers, Roman Kemp and Andi Winston, set out to investigate. If the premise feels familiar, it’s because Armstrong is riffing on a well-known urban legend, and he manages to make the well-trod story sing. This is a promising start.