Dylan Walsh assumes the titular role in this remake of the 80s classic from the team behind the lacklustre Prom Night remake and thankfully, whilst not as good as the original it’s a decent retread.
Michael Harding (Penn Badgley) returns home from military school to discover that his mum has a lovely new fiancé, David (Walsh) who everyone is just crazy about. As David’s lies begin to spiral out of control however, Michael and his family become suspicious of him. I don’t need to tell you what happens next.
The film starts out by recreating the original’s opening pretty much shot for shot, but it does then begin to deviate slightly. I guess the biggest problem with the film is that we know David is a psycho and has already killed at least one family, so we know exactly the kind of thing that will mark a character as his next victim, such as confronting him about his lies or checking up on him. This puts the audience two steps ahead of the characters and ultimately makes them look dumb. Speaking of which, poor Paige Turco’s character deserves what she gets for being dumb all on her own…who goes out to their pool to fish out a parasol in the middle of a storm?
Things that the film does have going for it include a great cast, some new ideas (making the lead a guy instead of a girl creates a whole lot of nice alpha male tension and drama) a few more instances of violence than I expected the sappy PG-13 brigade to include (although the cat lady should have been left to be devoured by her kitties AND we should have seen it!) and some competent technical and stunt work all topped off with another great score from Charlie Clouser.
OVERALL SUMMARY
The Stepfather is a pretty good thriller, it’s just a little bit too by the numbers to be fully effective.
