The Stepfather (2009)
Directed by Nelson McCormick
Written by J. S Cardone
Starring Dylan Walsh, Sela Ward, Penn Badgley, Amber Heard, Jon Tenney
Release Date October 16th, 2009
Published October 17th, 2009
Must we suffer more unnecessary remakes? Ugh. With a paucity of original ideas Hollywood has been mining its history, good and bad, for movies to revamp, re-imagine and re-engineer in hopes of shaking loose a few dollars from a mass audience that likely wasn't alive or aware whent the original movie was created.
The latest case in point is The Stepfather, a remake of an exceptionally lame horror thriller about a shady creep who murders the families that take him in as a step-daddy. The 1988 movie, at the very least, had the kink of an previously unexplored premise, step-dad as psycho killer. The new film is but a shadow reflecting the ultimate lameness of the original, minus the kink.
Penn Badgely, the hard bodied star of the CW Network's Gossip Girl takes the good guy role in The Stepfather as wayward black sheep Michael. Having just returned from military school for some unseen acting out, Michael finds his family has changed. Where once his father was is now David Harris (Dylan Walsh).
David hooked up with Michael's mom Susan (Sela Ward) one day in the grocery store. Their courtship was so quick that Michael wasn't gone a semester before wedding plans began. Not that Michael cared where his father went, Jay Harding (Jon Tenney) was a cheater and given the boot about the time Michael was sent to military school.
David is, at first, an exceptionally corny and overly welcoming presence in the house. However, once Michael and other begin to probe about his past David goes from cornball to creep. Soon bodies begin to pile up and Michael has to find some way to stop the psycho from making his family the latest in a series of family victims.
As loathsome as The Stepfather is there is some terrifically off-beat work by “Nip Tuck” actor Dylan Walsh. The ways in which he forces David's normalcy on others is at once tense and humorous. His secret glowering and tics become something of a dark, inside joke between him and the audience.
Sadly, little else in The Stepfather captures that off-beat spirit. Director Nelson McCormick hues closely to the formula right down to the inevitable rain soaked battle for survival between the besieged family and the family psycho-path. The ending is typical horror kitsch right down to the knowing wink.
The Stepfather is as dopey as you would expect. You really had no reason to see the 1988 original. There is less reason to see this unremarkable remake.
