The Stepfather
You know a slasher movie could easily show Terry O'Quinn just massacre a bunch of people, but in the case of Joseph Ruben's The Stepfather, we see a bloody-faced man looking into the sweaty mirror, soon "transforming" himself into a "new man", a shave and new pair of clothes as he walks down the stairs of a rather nice suburban two story house and what we see at his hands is a living room in disarray, savaged bodies of his family the remnants of a psychopath's rage because they could not ultimately satisfy his vision of perfection. He even walks from the living room, onto his freshly cut green lawn, whistling (yes, whistling as if nothing that just happened before this), picking up the newspaper, and moving on to the next family he's liable to slay in the same fashion as before.
Shelley Hack (quite an engaging smile and personality) has found herself in love again after the devastating loss of her husband, her daughter (played by the delicious Jill Schoelen) acting out immaturely by staying into trouble, particularly at school. Suspensions are regular with Schoelen, until eventually she is expelled after a fight in art class. All this aggression, anger, and bitterness stems from the death of her father and the inclusion of a new stepfather doesn't help matters. She immediately senses something wrong about him, something that doesn't quite feel right, but explaining this to a psychiatrist or her happy and content mother is difficult. O'Quinn is that stepfather, so we know what he's capable of from the first scene and can see the writing on the wall that Schoelen will more than likely enrage him as well. Why? Because he's in pursuit of the ideal of the perfect American dream, that being the family he believes should contain no flaws, an impossible reality that will never come to fruition. But, unlike his previous family, Schoelen suspects him from the start, so he may have a fight on his hands.
What makes this movie is the performances, especially from O'Quinn. This is not an overly violent movie yet its reputation with the horror community endures. O'Quinn has a ton to do with that. Unlike the rather lackluster Cutting Class, with a pre-star Brad Pitt, The Stepfather gave Schoelen a quality movie to perform in, embuing her character with a frustration that is palpable because although her mom is incredibly satisfied with the new man her life, she misses her real father, and that unease and distrust that exists only adds tension and discomfort soon to provoke the dark, ugly beast that lies dormant in O'Quinn.
O'Quinn. You read a lot about how damn good he is in this movie. It's a delicate balance. Serial killers often are successful in hiding from those around them--friends, family, community--the savage that lurks within, released upon the innocent, carefully selected and executed. There's a quality to O'Quinn because he shows the facade, how much of the all-smiles, laying on the charm, friendly, All American Father is a performance. A great scene has Schoelen in the basement getting ice cream for a party that O'Quinn threw for his realty clients when she sees him freaking out because his plan for the perfect family is unraveling. It's that dark side, the inner monster, what he really is, that emerges, O'Quinn's character completely naked, unglued and real: Schoelen sees the real O'Quinn, and the contest for who wins Hack starts here.
I think the marketing machine in the late 80s could have a field day because of this idea of a psychopathic Ward Cleaver, the All American Dad Lunatic who changes identity like clothes, and there some marvelous moments where O'Quinn gets various "disguises" mixed up. Hack gets it across the face with a phone when she catches O'Quinn in a Fruedian Slip, getting his boss' names mixed up. What O'Quinn's killer does is plan an "exit strategy" when he feels that his model of a perfect family doesn't quite function as he believes it should. He puts on a new identity, changes his looks, finds a new location to settle, prepares for the next family he will stepfather, buys a home next to a woman without a husband (and with kids; to him it is important to have kids), and sets in motion the slaughter of the imperfect family that disappointed him. The rub of this film is that the wife and daughter aren't so easy to do away with. 
This does have violence, but it isn't of such quantity as it used when needed. Characters, like Schoelen's psychiatrist (who gets it with a 2X4 numerous times) and the doggedly searching brother of a wife he butchered (he's the Dick Hallorann of this movie, we follow him as he hunts down O'Quinn, lead after lead getting the man closer and closer only to be dispatched in relatively quick order thanks to "old reliable", that is the butcher knife). Schoelen gets to take it to O'Quinn, pretty much inhabiting the final girl role, her mom, using a gun supplied by the dead brother lying face up at her front door, some definite help in showing *Jerry* that they aren't about to just allow him to tear them to pieces. I do think the violence is enough to get the point across that *Jerry* will kill your ass at the drop of the hat (my money, the death of the psychiatrist with the wood, Jerry just pummeling him unmercifully, then comfortably getting rid of him, faking a car accident as his faux fate), and that in order to stop him you have to resort to the same brutal methods.
For those who grew up with this movie, like you I rented it a hell of a lot on VHS back in the day. I was extremely happy when the film FINALLY got its much deserved dvd release. I have a few VHS movies in my miniature barn in the back yard, but I far prefer the beauty of a proper dvd release. This film is quite an eye full in wide screen and it appears that Joseph Ruben shot it that way. I can't imagine seeing the movie again on the old format after such impressive shots as the birdhouse and the living room crime scene. The suburban neighborhoods, the back yard barbeque, etc. It all appears to have been shot wide and composed grandly. I'm appreciative that I finally had a chance to see it the way it deserves to be seen, not on a cropped pan-and-scan VHS tape version.
It really is an excellent movie, as well-written as it is performed. It isn't a slasher picture, though--it's an anti-slasher picture. There's no big bodycount, no unidimensional targets present solely to sin and be killed for it in increasingly elaborate ways, and no one who watches it roots for O'Quinn's character. It presents the uber-conservative morality of the slashers to be seriously out-of-touch with reality, and, when embraced too rigidly, dangerously so.
ReplyDeleteIn the era and the genre in which it was made, it was practically revolutionary.
I think that is why the other films falter after this one; they are slasher films for the most part, missing the point of this film altogether. I still thought O'Quinn was once again excellent in the sequel, especially in that final scene.
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