Deep End (Jerzy Skolimowski, 1970). In the immediate hangover of the Swinging Sixties U.K., everyone was evidently so horny it drove them out of their minds. Deep End follows Mike (John Moulder-Brown), a teenager who drops out of school and takes a job at a seedy bathhouse where the older ladies who make up much the clientele are constantly putting the moves on him. He responds to all this attention with virginal fluster. He also falls hard for Susan (Jane Asher), a coworker who wears fetching mod outfits and weathers her unsatisfactory lot in life with a pointed cynicism and casual disdain. On occasion, she reciprocates Mike’s flirty overtures, which leads to a whole lot of mess. Director Jerzy Skolimowski’s visual sense is striking throughout, even as the storytelling can get a little muddled in moments where it feels like improvisational padding has been added. The script (co-credited to Jerzy Gruza, Boleslaw Sulik, and Skolimowski) simply doesn’t have enough plot to fill the time, so there’s a lot of darkly comic riffing. The film is aptly disturbing in the end, essentially arguing that men’s need to aggressively possess what they desire is bound to lead women to be punished no matter how much they forgive and acquiesce.

No Way Out (Roger Donaldson, 1987). Lieutenant Commander Tom Farrell (Kevin Costner) is a hotshot with the Office of Naval Intelligence, prowling Washington, D.C. parties with an knack for spotting the sultriest lady who might make for a nice evening companion. One night, he connects with Susan Atwell (Sean Young), setting into motion a romance that is complicated by her status as the favored mistress of David Brice (Gene Hackman), the U.S. Secretary of Defense. No Way Out combines lurid potboiler elements with backstabbing political intrigue and Cold War paranoia. This movie desperately needed Alan J. Pakula in his prime to make all these precarious components come together in a sound, satisfying way. Roger Donaldson is a long way from Pakula in his prime. As it stands, the film is narratively sloppy, and that’s before it gets to a last act twist that barely makes sense and is plopped out unceremoniously. This thriller is also peppered with mediocre acting. Only Hackman is consistently strong. He shows how confident privilege leads straight to a host of other ugly behaviors. Sean Young gives a performance that is amazing for being hammy, flat, and vibrantly charismatic at the same time.

The Monkey (Osgood Perkins, 2025). Osgood Perkins goes for a mix of gonzo comedy and Fangoria-friendly gore with this adaptation of a Stephen King short story (that I read ages ago and vaguely remember as one of his more dashed-off efforts). Tonally, it’s a mess. The Monkey is sometimes snarky, sometimes cynical, and sometimes toxically fascinated with hyper-violent slapstick. The horror stems from a wind-up monkey toy that magically conjures up elaborate, nasty deaths for random people every time his key is turned. The assembly of fatal absurdities recalls the Final Destination movies, but without the sense of underlying logic. At the forefront of the movie, Theo James deserves some credit for his commitment to the bit, especially as he’s called upon to play a double role that sometimes skews towards cartoon. In a supporting role, Tatiana Maslany makes impossible dialogue work about fifty percent of the time, which is an astoundingly impressive ratio under the circumstances. More than anything else, the movie is just obnoxious.