Game Over

Who should preside over sleepy little Dinsmore's newest commercial enterprise but the Devil himself? Introducing himself as Everett Blacke, the proprietor of the Hades video arcade takes special pains to lure the town's teenagers, particularly the pariahs. He steers them to games with names like Roadkill and Safari Slaughter that somehow feature their real-life persecutors, and before long they are committing real-life murders. Can Joe and Lorinda, themselves much taunted, stop Mr. Blacke before he wins everyone's soul? Joe must come to terms with his deepest desires for revenge before he can battle the archfiend. Locke does a good job of setting up the final, epic confrontation between Joe and Mr. Blacke, but Sunday school-solemnity and banal imagery turn the showdown into an anticlimax. The stuff B-movies are made of. Ages 12-up. (July)