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What’s the Story?

Reviewed byJames Rocchi
A remake of the same-named 1987 cult classic (starring Lost's Terry O'Quinn), THE STEPFATHER follows David (Dylan Walsh), a man who finds broken families and insinuates himself into their lives in an effort to create a perfect, loving family. Unfortunately for the families he finds, deviations from his idea of "perfection" tend to result in him killing them and moving on to try again. The movie opens as he's leaving his latest failed attempt, only to make recent divorcee Susan (Sela Ward) his next target. Six months later, he's Susan's fiancee and is being introduced to her eldest son, Michael (Penn Badgley). As David tries frantically to keep his lies and tall tales from spinning out of control, Michael gets closer and closer to the truth ... and closer and closer to danger.

Is It Any Good?

3

The best thing about The Stepfather remake is still the central idea about a man trying to make the perfect family via a very unusual methodology. The second best is Walsh's performance, which veers between bland affability and ice-cold fury at the flick of a switch. Director Nelson McCormick (who previously remade another '80s chiller, Prom Night, far less notably) at least knows when to get out of the way of the story and his star and let them do the work.

Unfortunately, McCormick tries to have it both ways by keeping the scares in The Stepfather low-key and predictable (for example, Michael's younger siblings are ushered off-stage for thefilm's climax, kept ata distance from the peril and bloodshed) -- as if he were hedging his own bets. Badgley and co-star Amber Heard make a nice duo of slow-to-doubt teens, and Ward anchors the film with an optimism that turns to concern as the facade of her fiancee's perfection crumbles in the light of the facts. The Stepfather isn't incompetent, grimly clueless, or actively bad -- it's just unnecessary and more than a little unimpressive in the unique light of the original.

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