The Stepfather (1987)

***What if your stepfather is a psycho?***

After an amiable man (Terry O'Quinn) in the Seattle area slays his family he starts a new one under a different identity, but his discerning stepdaughter (Jill Schoelen) picks up on his questionable morality.

“The Stepfather” (1987) is a solid crime drama/thriller with a bit o’ horror. Movies like “Psycho” (1960), “Play Misty for Me” (1971), “Halloween” (1978), “The Shining” (1980) and “Fatal Attraction” (1987) come to mind, but this is equal parts coming-of-age drama in the mold of “The Crush” (1993) with a sort of inverted story. O’Quinn effectively portrays the delusional titular character while Schoelen is reminiscent of a young Demi Moore. The decidedly 80’s score is quaint.

The film runs 1 hour, 29 minutes, and was shot in the Vancouver area, including Edgemont Village. The main cast is rounded out by Shelley Hack (the girl’s mother), Charles Lanyer (her therapist) and Stephen Shellen (the justice-seeking brother of the original family).

GRADE: B+

Leaving a scene of carnage behind him, “Jerry” (Terry Quinn) chucks the evidence over the side of his departing ferry and goes off in search of a new life. He is soon settled down with “Susan” (Shelley Hack) and her teenage daughter “Stephanie” (Jill Schoelen). That all seems to be proceeding well enough, he’s got a job as an estate agent and though his relationship with his new step-daughter could be better, things seem fine. Suddenly, though, it’s as if a switch has been flipped and his previously more menacing character starts to rear its ugly head. His family aren’t quite as malleable as he required and so, well, you can imagine his reaction and the rest of the plot. I suspect his approach to a pain-in-the-ass teen might resonate with some, but perhaps not with a family who have to come to terms with his increasingly unpleasant behaviour and that’s really the gist of this. It’s not exactly original, nor does it stray very far from the path of predictability as the drama is repetitively protracted to maximise the sense of peril without really paying much attention to plausibility. We know that “Ogilvie” (Stephen Shellen) is on his trail, but that thread rather peters out before a denouement that is both rushed and clumsily sequel-boding. It’s ok, but nothing special, sorry.