We finally concluded our horror unit in film class on Thursday with Joseph Ruben's The Stepfather. I had zero expectations going in because I was only vaguely familiar with the film as one of Terry O'Quinn's few starring film roles. Well, not surprisingly, it got a much warmer reception from my classmates (whose taste, in large part, has always been highly questionable) than any of our previous films, which you can read by clicking back through this blog. Needless to say, my incredulity is unparalleled. There is no Shadow of a Doubt about it: The Stepfather sucks.
How many Hitchcock films have you seen, Penrod? Well, if you've seen even one, you should be familiar with the general plot of this movie. Jerry Blake (Terry O'Quinn) is a hardworking, nice guy who moves to a small Washington town and marries widow Susan Maine (Susan Hack), becomes a successful real estate agent, and makes himself a friend to the entire community. It seems the only person suspicious of him is his stepdaughter Stephanie (Jill Schoelen), a troubled girl who has never gotten over the death of her biological father. Before too long, Stephanie uncovers the truth: her stepfather is a serial killer, who has wiped out his previous family and may be willing to do it again. Jerry, for his part, just wants an ideal family, but the problem is that when his family doesn't live up to Leave it to Beaver, he decides to resolve the situation by slicing and dicing his relatives. Meanwhile, some douchebag (Stephen Shellen) who was apparently related to Jerry's last victim is running around like a chicken with his head cut off, looking for revenge - but he proves to be absolutely worthless.
The movie's plot is essentially a reworking of Hitchcock's classic Shadow of a Doubt (1943), a wonderfully dark, grimly humorous noir thriller that Hitch himself named as his favorite of his work. Although I'd disagree (there are at least four others I'd put ahead of it myself), I can certainly see justification for such an opinion. This was among the first movies to explore the now-common theme (Blue Velvet, Desperate Housewives) of the dust and dirt lurking in the seemingly tidy corners of small-town America. The seemingly benign, charming and friendly Uncle Charlie (wonderfully played by Joseph Cotten) shows up at the home of his now-married Sister (Patricia Collinge), and manages to insinuate himself into the community, where he's acclaimed as a model neighbor and citizen. Only his nephew Charlie (Theresa Wright) slowly begins to uncover his secret - that he's a serial murderer and psychotic misogynist. Sound familiar? Save a few slight flaws - the title seems to have little to do with the story, as happened in a fair number of Hitchcock films, and the climax seems a bit overwrought and unconvincing- the movie is among the best of its type, and one of Hitchcock's first truly great movies.
Perhaps Mr. Ruben should have adhered to the famous MST3K maxim: "Never reference a good movie in the middle of your crappy move." While Hitchcock's movie managed to be creepy and chilling, it maintained a sense of humor (however dark) throughout. Ruben plays the film as straight horror, and not only that, but splatter film horror with graphic killings and lots of gore. (To be fair, the body count isn't terribly high, but the killings we do see are nice and graphic.) His low-budget schlock fest takes one of the best films of its type and turns it into a run-of-the-mill slasher flick. The movie borrows the basic plot and characters from Hitchcock films, as well as many specific scenes and visual cues (such as his folding up a newspaper reporting his crime and giving it to a child). There is a shower scene towards the end which seems inserted for little reason other than to recall Psycho, and shortly thereafter, an amusing but strange homage to The Birds. The shot of Jerry with a knife sticking out of his chest put me at least in mind of Torn Curtain, although maybe I'm just connecting the wrong dots. Homages can be fun, but when they're 90% of your film - and when your movie sucks - then you've got a problem.
Besides slavishly referencing the Master of Supsense, The Stepfather shows its slasher roots by falling squarely into the same traps as Halloween and Friday the 13th. The build-up, although let down by a rather amateur screenplay, is decent, and the movie manages to convey its message competently. The movie tries to make the argument that the "ideal family" and the "American Dream" are only a fantasy - which would be great, but then using a psychotic serial killer as the American Dad kind of undermines the point, I feel. Jerry is more of a masculine monster, an embodiment of the repressive patriarchal society come to destroy our happy all-female family. I'm not impressed by this sophomoric feminism, mind, I merely point it out. For what kind of film student would I be if I didn't engage in some wonderfully half-baked analysis? Anyway, once Jerry's psychosis comes to the surface, the movie becomes yet another crazy dude whacking people flick, without anything to really distinguish it from the rest of its insipid genre mates. To be fair though, Jerry doesn't kill anyone with a chainsaw, or spear a copulating couple, or get shot by his kid - erm, well, not quite, anyway.
I've always liked Terry O'Quinn well-enough; his distinctive, craggy appearance and voice are a welcome sight on any number of TV shows, from The X-Files to Millennium to The West Wing to Alias to Lost. He's given fine supporting performances in a variety of films: Heaven's Gate, Young Guns, Tombstone, Ghosts of Mississippi, Old School. So I'm not speaking out of any dislike of one of our finest character actors. But I thought he was bad here, as hammy as a Hormel factory (with 20% less additives!). He is okay in the early scenes as the seemingly model father - his first rage scene is admittedly a bit effective. But towards the end, as Jerry goes off the deep end, he goes way overboard, screaming his dialogue, bulging his eyes. Norman Bates he ain't. It might not be fair to blame O'Quinn; perhaps Ruben should have put his star on a leash. Either way, O'Quinn gives a performance worthy of a William Shatner or Steven Seagal here. To be absolutely fair, he was much better than Corbin Bernsen in The Dentist films, but he lacks the quiet dignity of a Kane Hodder or Warwick Davis. The rest of the cast is competent, but I wouldn't say anyone was really worth singling out for praise, as competent is only praise for a first-year film student.
So, I hope I made my point that The Stepfather utterly blows. Its direction is competent, acting (save O'Quinn) isn't bad, but that's about the best I can say about it. (I didn't even mention the insipid, banal sub-Halloween techno-noodling that tries to pass itself off as a soundtrack.) There's a Hitchcock film I kept mentioning in this review, what was it? It's on YouTube. It's really good. It's a fucking Hitchcock movie that isn't Torn Curtain or The Trouble With Harry. Why don't you go watch that instead?
Rating: 3/10 - Complete Drek
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