When a teenage boy (Penn Badgley) begins to suspect that his new stepfather (Dylan Walsh) is a notorious serial killer who preys on broken families, he races to gather the evidence that will back up his radical claim before it's too late. The 1987 thriller that shot Lost star Terry O'Quinn to cult stardom serves as inspiration for this remake penned by J.S. Cardone and directed by Nelson McCormick. Sela Ward, Jon Tenney, and Amber Heard co-star in a Screen Gems release. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
That last stormy night of violence should be the shocker. Giving away his ruthlessness in earlier killings robs the movie of it its payoff as it saps the climax of much of its power.
The trouble with the movie, apart from its rather monotonous dourness of tone, is that everyone in the family... comes off as tougher, smarter, and quicker on the draw than the stepfather who's supposed to be outfoxing them.
Any subtlety or implicit social satire to be found in Joseph Ruben's original went out with the last neighborhood trash pickup. Too bad the service was canceled before it could haul away this waste-of-time remake. [Blu-ray]
The Stepfather plays a lot better at home on the TV than it did in theaters. I'd say, unless you are an absolute purist for the original or you need a lot of blood and gore, give it a shot.
Not so much a contemporary re-make of Joseph Ruben's 1987 psychological thriller as a lobotomised bastard step-child: over-plotted, over-long, and stripped of the original's sharp, satirical subversion of suburban family values.
If the movie's attic-bound climax is a little predictable and the plot holes rather gaping, The Stepfather, unlike many of its more prestigious A-class competitors, is never less than entertaining.
Nelson McCormick is ridiculously lax with inventive or plausible staging: it's the kind of movie where a door can't open without thunderclaps and the bad guy flinging himself into the frame.
The Stepfather is full of unintentional laughs, shameless plot contrivances and cheap scare tactics, but this adds to the fun once you've tapped into the risible nature of the production.
This rehash - toned (and dumbed) down for adolescent audiences by the director responsible for taking the slash out of Prom Night - provides thin gruel.
Mercilessly talky and deathly dull, this bloodless, sex-less misfire plays more like a housewife-baiting telemovie than the taut, teen-centric psycho-thriller it's supposed to be.
Uninspiring and, crucially, not all that scary. There are no attempts either to explore the killer's motivation and none of the original's black humour.
Devestatingly boring and overplayed, this movie had little or no merit whatsoever. There is almost 0% blood, gore or indeed horror to this wannabe remake of a classic. Walsh was convincing enough and the acting wasn't terrible, but even the best actors cannot work well with a terrible script. One of the worst remakes
in the history of horror regurgitation.
September 18, 2011
Unknown Hobo
Super Reviewer
They have done this beautifully. Not too scary, but more heart pounding. You are always going to predict the ending in these sorts of films but you definitely didn't with this one. The ending was unexpected for me. Penn Badgley and Amber Heard really carried the film.
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