Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Spacey Unmasked’ On Investigation Discovery/Max, Where Even More People Accuse Kevin Spacey Of Sexual Assault

In the two-part docuseries Spacey Unmasked, director Katherine Haywood speaks to ten men who are accusing Kevin Spacey of sexual assault. Nine of the men haven’t spoken publicly about their assaults until now. None of the men were part of the 2023 court case in the UK where Spacey was ultimately acquitted on 9 charges of sexual assault.

SPACEY UNMASKED: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A man sits down for an on-camera interview and says, “The very first scene of House Of Cards just blew me away.”

The Gist: The people that Haywood speaks to are from different parts of Spacey’s career, from when he was a young and unknown stage actor in New York in the early 1980s, through his Oscar-winning peak of his movie career in the 1990s, through his time as creative director of the Old Vic theater in London and his star turn in House Of Cards. In addition, Heywood talks to journalists like Adam Vary, who broke the stories about Spacey’s assaults, and Spacey’s estranged older brother Randall Fowler.

Randall, who admittedly dresses flamboyantly as a way to mask the pain from the traumatic childhood he and his brother had, describes life with a racist, Neo-Nazi father who was physically abusive. He didn’t witness his younger brother getting physically abused, but he also noticed that Kevin shut down and did other mental gymnastics in order to avoid beatings.

The accusations range from Spacey grabbing the genitals of one of the actors playing a Secret Service agent on House Of Cards to an aspiring actor who watched while Spacey masturbated during a screening of Saving Private Ryan (yes, you read that right), with the Oscar winner attempting to get the actor to “help” him. In the second episode, more accusers come forward, many of whom worked with Spacey in the UK. In most of the cases, the men felt guilt and shame after the incidents, blaming themselves for getting in these situations instead of Spacey for taking advantage of the power imbalance between him and his alleged victims in most of these cases.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Spacey Unmasked gave us the same uneasy feeling as Quiet On Set: The Dark Side Of Kids TV.

Our Take: Spacey Unmasked aired on Channel 4 in the UK earlier this month, and Spacey did a 90-minute interview responding to the allegations (as well as the ones from his trial) and the fact that the docuseries’ producers and Channel 4 only gave him a week to respond to them. What we found ourselves doing during the docuseries is not just cringing and recoiling at the horrific behavior Spacey allegedly exhibited, in many cases taking advantage of his status as one of Hollywood’s top A-list stars, but we also wondered just what sort of dark place Spacey goes to when he allegedly commits these acts, given the depths of despair he was in during his youth.

More than once, Haywood plays archival interview clips from Spacey saying that he has no interest in revealing anything about his inner life to the press. That included his sexual orientation, who he might be in relationships with, his childhood, and anything else. He only came out when the accusations against him began to be leveled around the time the #MeToo movement started picking up steam.

Those clips are illustrative of Spacey as a person, as is the interview with Andy, whose story about Spacey dates back to the Public Theater in New York in 1981. This is before Spacey was an award-winning A-lister; in fact, he was all of 22 years old and scrambling for acting parts. Andy’s description of Spacey’s eyes going dark during his attack is the most harrowing to us because this was a Spacey who had no power over anyone, yet some sort of darkness took over his psyche in Andy’s account of events.

Haywood certainly paints a picture of a man who may be a predator, and definitely uses his power to his advantage, but also a man who might not really know how depraved his behavior really is. Spacey’s own accounts of his behavior belie this viewpoint; he acknowledges being inappropriate, but not to the level that rises to assault. Haywood, however, makes it clear that the incidents these men describe are assaults, a message we pretty much get by halfway through the first episode. It makes us wonder if, by the time viewers get through both episodes, they’ll start becoming numb to these descriptions of assault or just be outraged that Spacey has somehow gotten away with it.

Sex and Skin: The descriptions of these assaults are just going to make you physically recoil. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Parting Shot: Scenes from the second episode, that center around Spacey’s time in England.

Sleeper Star: None. We just felt bad for all of the people Spacey allegedly attacked, especially those whose careers he threatened if they said anything.

Most Pilot-y Line: The Saving Private Ryan story feels unreal, mainly because, well, that’s not exactly a film that someone would do what Spacey is accused of doing while watching it.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Spacey Unmasked is a relentless series of stories detailing horrific behavior by Kevin Spacey, but it also tries to give a little context by delving into the actor’s life. Still, it’s hard to watch.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.