The Stepfather (1987)

 

Many years ago I did a blog that was 90% dedicated to the TV show LOST.  In that show was a character known as John Locke.  He was played by Terry O'Quinn who stars here as Jerry Blake, the stepfather to Stephanie portrayed by Jill Schoelen (Popcorn and Cutting Class) and husband to Susan who is played by Shelly Hack (Charlie's Angels TV show and countless "Charlie" perfume commercials in the late 70's).  Of course this is his latest ready made family as when we first see Jerry he is finishing up with his previous family.  And when I say "finishing up" I mean pretty much killing them all.  He cuts his hair, shaves, gets in the shower to wash off their blood, and leaves.  Whistling Camp Town Races as he goes.  He gets on a ferry and dumps a suitcase containing his old life off the side and then watches it sink into the water.

 

 

A year later and we see Jerry is now with Stephanie (who doesn't like him very much), his sixteen year old stepdaughter and Susan his new wife who was a widow before Jerry came along.  Stephanie goes to a shrink to talk about her dislike for Jerry and coping with the death of her father.  Jerry is a real estate agent and seems to be well liked in the community so when Stephanie begins to dig into a family that was murdered about a year ago nobody believes her when she thinks Jerry is the murderer.  She sees a newspaper article about the deaths and asks for a picture of the suspect in the case.  They send her a photo of Jerry before the shave and a haircut.  Lucky for Jerry he gets the photo before she does.  He then gets a photo of some other guy that sort of looks like he did then and puts it in the envelope.  He gives it to Stephanie later which doesn't do much to satisfy her suspicions. 

 

 

To make matters worse for Jerry, the brother of his previous wife is looking for him.  Sooner rather than later Jerry is going to have to start thinking about another family where he can begin again.  But first there's some loose ends he has to take care of.  The Stepfather is directed by Joseph Ruben (The Good Son and The Forgotten) and while some describe this as a straight up slasher, I have to disagree.  We don't have a crazed lunatic roaming the streets killing people in a demented rage.  Sure, Ol' Jer is a psycho but this is more of a Norman Bates kind of psycho instead of the Jason Vorhees type.  Terry O'Quinn as John Locke was the type of sad and pathetic character you wanted to feel sorry for but he was his own worse enemy and in the end he didn't get any of my sympathies.  Here he is straight up loony and the part almost seems to have been written for him.  The Stepfather is good but there's something lacking for me that puts it over the top and makes it a great film.  I'll give this three toy sail boats out of five.