Though it’s the third film in a franchise that kicked off in 2018, “A Quiet Place: Day One” (Paramount) serves, as its subtitle suggests, as a prequel to its predecessors. Accordingly, it recounts the opening stages of the series’ trademark showdown between resourceful humans and marauding aliens.

If the devil comes a-calling, you may need an electrician, because Moloch and his ilk have the power to make lights turn on and off at their bidding. Such is one of the primary takeaways from the often-silly horror flick “The Exorcism” (Vertical).

Raw mayhem fuels “The Bikeriders” (Focus), a fact-based drama about the rise and fall of a Chicago motorcycle gang over the 1960s and early 70s. Accordingly, only those prepared to take on challenging material should patronize this well-crafted but roisterous production.

Capsule reviews of theatrical movies available now for streaming or scheduled for broadcast on network or cable television as well as notes on TV programming for the same week.

A fact-based fish-out-of-water tale, director and co-writer Richard Linklater’s black comedy “Hit Man” (Netflix) starts off intriguingly. After some needlessly graphic forays into eroticism, however, the film’s third-act departure from the real biography of its protagonist sends a morally skewed message.

Capsule reviews of theatrical movies available now for streaming or scheduled for broadcast on network or cable television as well as notes on TV programming for the same week.

It’s a notable phenomenon in contemporary Hollywood that some movies aimed primarily at children, especially those produced by Pixar, prove both more substantive and emotionally resonant than many films competing for a grown audience. Such is the case with the animated psychological comedy “Inside Out 2” (Disney).

Capsule reviews of theatrical movies available now for streaming or scheduled for broadcast on network or cable television as well as notes on TV programming for the same week.

Bloodletting is kept to a minimum in writer-director Ishana Night Shyamalan’s horror tale, her feature debut. But so too, alas, is viewer interest.

The outstanding characteristic of the “Bad Boys” buddy cop movies has always been the sheer delight with which they depict violence. So when, after a two-film rampage over the turn of the millennium, the franchise fell quiescent for almost as long as Rip Van Winkle snoozed, it was a case of letting a sleeping cinematic dog lie.