A bloody horror comedy that involves an evil windup monkey toy, an engaging Pixar series set around a championship softball game, a gritty Hulu period drama from the maker of “Peaky Blinders,” top our roundup this week.

Each offer rewards. Here are our reviews.

“The Monkey” >> Movies adapted from Stephen King works have been either cursed or blessed. For every unforgettable one — Stanley Kubrick’s“ The Shining” (though King despised it), Rob Reiner’s “Misery,” Brian DePalma’s “Carrie,” Rob Reiner’s “Stand By Me,” Andy Muschietti’s “It” and Frank Darabont’s “The Shawshank Redemption” — there are the terrible ones — King’s godawful “Maximum Overdrive,” Lawrence Kasdan’s dumb “Dreamcatcher,” Nikolaj Arcel’s lame “The Dark Tower” and so on.

How does “Longlegs” director Osgood Perkins fare with his cheeky adaptation of a King short story? Quite well. It falls short of being a grand slam because of tonal shift slips, but this gory black comedy rates as a solid triple. The reason it succeeds is it surrenders to King’s macabre humor, which is peppered throughout his work from the morbid clown scares of “It” down to the consumer feeding frenzy of “Needful Things.” “The Monkey” is classic King material. A creepy windup childhood monkey doll that plays cymbals and bears a stressed-out psycho smile re-enters the lives of two very different twins (Theo James). A prologue with Adam Scott establishes how this demonic toy entered the family lair and then got stuck in the attic. The simian figure gets associated with a string of gruesome deaths, including the twins’ mother (Tatiana Maslany). With the twins now in their adult years, the monkey returns and it’s hard to get the evil entity off their backs. “The Monkey” is no means as scary nor nightmare-inducing as “Pet Sematary” or Mike Flanagan’s underrated “Doctor Sleep,” a sequel to “The Shining.” But it’s overrun with some of the most inventive kills this side of “Saw.” James is perfectly cast as both the sort-of loser Hal and the sort-of wild man Bill, while a cameo from Elijah Wood is hilarious.

As anyone who’s seen “Longlegs” can attest, Perkins is a good match with King, juggling the frights with the right laughs. Those King fans thirsting for authentic scares will go away hungry and bummed, but for anyone looking for tongue-in-cheek horror that’s drenched in gore, you’ll go bananas over it.

Details >> out of 4; in theaters Friday.

“Win or Lose” >> For Pixar’s first original series on Disney+, the Emeryville-based animated force dusts off one of the most reliable metaphors for this American life — baseball, or in this case, softball. With eight interconnected 20-minute-ish episodes, the characters ranging from a stressed-out middle-school player whose dad is the team’s coach to a commitment-phobic 32-year-old umpire/teacher, sometimes strike out, commit very human errors and drop the ball. But they come back, too. Each episode culminates with the start of the championship game, a day of reckoning for all involved. How does it all turn out? You just have to stick it out through all eight innings. The animation is, of course, first-rate, and since this is Pixar, the characters are given far more depth and dimension than what you’d find in most non-animated films. If it does feel familiar at times that might well be because the themes in “Win or Lose” are universal . The voice talent features an East Bay native (the extra-busy Will Forte) and many talented actors including Izaac Wang, Lil Rel Howery, Melissa Villaseñor and my favorite — Rosa Salazar, voicing the best episode as a social-media-loving mom Vanessa. This outstanding movie notches another Pixar win and proves yet again how the studio remains the champions of animation.

Details >> ; drops this week on Disney+.

“A Thousand Blows” >> Fans of Steven Knight’s catchy period crime drama “Peaky Blinders” will find many of the trademark elements that turned that series into such a compelling success in this six-parter. Knight convincingly takes us back to the grimy, scuzzy streets of 1880s East London for a showdown in and out of the boxing ring. Each major character in Knight’s Dickensian universe exists on the fringes and shadows of society with many picking pockets and more in order to survive. Entering that dire existence are two Jamaican friends, Hezekiah (Malachi Kirby), who wants to be a lion tamer, and Alec (Francis Lovehall). Both men know how to box without their gloves on. They immediately get acquainted with the pilfering ways of the Forty Elephants (a female-led group that deals in robbery and sex work). Led by the perpetually unphased Mary Carr (a well-cast Erin Doherty), this consortium has devised an elaborate plan to steal from royalty during a Chinese leader’s visit. (Mary, incidentally, is based on a real character) Humming in the richly realized period detail background is a biblical story about two brothers — the battering bull of a boxer Sugar Goodson (a fierce and volatile Stephen Graham) and his bro and promoter, pub/ring co-owner and lesser-known boxer Edward “Treacle” Goodson (James Nelson-Joyce). Hezekiah’s arrival leads to an escalating feud between him and Sugar who, when unleashed, beats competitors into a bloody pulp. “A Thousand Blows” builds to a climax as secrets get revealed and motivations become circumspect. It’ll leave you dangling and begging to jump into its ring once more.

Details >> ; all six episodes drop Friday on Hulu.

“Millers in Marriage” >> One character sums up everything you need to know about director/writer and co-star Edward Burns’ latest glossy melodrama, this one about midlife adults in crisis and the relationships that sometimes get abandoned in the process. In it, Gretchen Moll, who plays Eve, a woman unhappily married to a narcissistic drunk, quietly remarks: “I can kind of relate to that.” For viewers of a certain age that sentiment asserts itself every so often in Burns’ uneven but rewarding soap opera about tangled relationships unraveling and some new beginnings for lovers, both together and apart. Throughout his career, Burns has had a knack for making us identify not so much with his characters, per se, but the fraught feelings they are often fumbling to express. That is the film’s greatest asset; the ability to convey an emotional deja vu. But some of it is just too clumsy, in particular any scene with the boorish Scott (Patrick Wilson), Eve’s alcoholic music producer hubby. Those scenes need to be reshot. Eve’s storyline improves when she re-runs into the sexy and very forward Johnny (Benjamin Bratt), setting up a personal and moral dilemma for the mom and still married woman who has put her dreams on the backburner.

The other “Millers” sibling storylines are better developed and less one-note. Eve’s sis Maggie (Julianna Margulies), a novelist who dips into her personal life liberally for inspiration, bickers a lot with her judgmental but fawning husband Nick (Campbell Scott), a novelist bitten by the writer’s block. Temptation arrives, not in a wine bottle (everyone in this movie spills the tea while drinking big pours) but in another man.

The most successful storyline is the film’s most complicated one, with recently separated Andy (Burns) — Eve’s and Maggie’s brother — becoming more involved with the very likable Renee (Minnie Driver). The problem is Andy’s flirtatious and inappropriate ex Tina (Morena Baccarin). She lingers around like bad breath.

“Millers in Marriage” is unapologetic about being focused on the woes of rich folk, but at least it is self-aware as it plunges into awkward relationship issues that often pertain to empty nesters and will likely strike a chord for so many.

Details >> ; in select theaters, also available to rent online.

Contact Randy Myers at soitsrandy@gmail.com.