The Stepfather [2009]

As you probably know this is the remake of 1987 original starring Terry O’Quinn (Lost, now we know why is he so handy with knives). As always this is a dangerous enterprise and rarely the movie succeeds in efforts to be better than the original. It all depends what are you expecting out of the movie. If you are looking for another cult movie, you will not find it, but if you are looking a flick to kill some time you will be pleased. For general public, the older version seems outdated, so clever producers thought of the way to make some money by recycling this cult movie of the eighties. However, the thing they forgot is the almost comical, and if nothing else, satirical vibe that the original had. This can be viewed in the tagline for this version: This fall Daddy’s home. However, when we got there, daddy was not there. They tried to replace this with some exploitation, but I will cover that at the end of the review.

So we have a murdering psychopath that clings to the unsuspecting single wives with children in hope of finding the perfect family. There are a few annoying compromises and illogical decisions in movie but that is standard for mainstream cinema. A well spent hour and a half, and if you are interested you might wanna check out the older version and see why Terry is so great. We all know that Amber Heard is hot and in this movie her body was used to accentuate the stepfather/hot teenager vibe. She’s not nude, but the shots are highly sexual, not that I’m complaining, just noticing.

Director: Nelson McCormick

Cast: Dylan Walsh, Sela Ward, Penn Badgley, Amber Heard, Sherry Stringfield

Fun Stuff: Terry O’Quinn, the star of The Stepfather (1987), was offered a cameo role in this film but he turned it down.

Rating:

IMDb Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0814335/