[The Stepfather]
Plot:Remake of the 1987 horror movie where a seemingly normal guy wants the perfect family, but when his new wife and stepchild don't measure up, he makes plans to eliminate them and move on to the next.

Cast:Dylan Walsh, Amber Heard, Paige Turco, Braeden LeMasters, Skyler Samuels, Jon Tenney, Sela Ward, Sherry Stringfield, Penn Badgley, Adrianne Palicki, Chris Meloni.

My Thoughts:Predictable, but well-played.

Review:Sony Screen Gems presents yet another new-age remake of an 80's horror movie, this time a remake of "The Stepfather", a horror film where if a family disappoints their new stepdaddy, he kills them and moves on to the next family. Ala a male version of a black widow, a woman who murders her husbands, and moves on to the next sucker. This guy does the same, but, not for money or power, but mostly because the family never meets his expectations.

The titular "Stepfather" in this film is played by Dylan Walsh, and he is no Terry O'Quinn, but he fits the 2009 mold of what a crazy, sociopathic suburban white guy would look like. Although in movies like this, the guy never looks grizzled like Manson or the BTK killer, but instead looks like a GAP model, hence Walsh. The pic begins with Walshes character David Harris killing a family, and he then moves on to another family. He eventually meets up with a divorcee named Susan Harding (Ward), and the two hit it off really well.

By the time her son Michael (Badgley) returns home from military school, his mom and her new beau are planning to get married. Michael and David don't hit it off too well at the beginning, but soon begin to slightly get along, mostly due to his mother being madly in love with David, Michael tries for ehr sake, to get along with the guy. But as more and more questions about David's behavior's and past begin to surface, his true nature begins to come out, and it's up to Michael to stop him before he makes him and his family his next victims. This movie isn't edge-of-your-seat entertaining, fun, or intense.

But it's well-played enough to atleast be decent. Which is about as much as you can ask for from a PG-13 remake with a bunch of hyper-good-looking people. The redo, unlike it's original, is very plastic, suburban, and empty. The original was more gritty, hard-hitting, and better paced. Walsh gives a good performance as David, the harmless (until you go nosing around his background) psychopath who hides his murderous nature beneath the phisad of a charming, family-oriented guy. But we've all seen this before. The normal guy who is really insane, possessive, and controlling. Movies like this show up on the Lifetime channel every week.

This one is just like those films, except with better production values, and slightly more blood. There's not as much blood and gore in this film as there was in the original. This remake is a creampuff, compared to the hyper-brutal original. Beyond a few scenes of implied danger, death, and some slight stabbings, we get no real graphic violence here. Amber Heard also stars in the pic as Michael's girlfriend Kelly. Her job in the movie is pretty simple also.

Be the hot girlfriend who tells Michael he's imagining the danger he beleives he's in, as he becomes more and more suspicious of his mother's new boyfriend, and soon-to-be-husband. And everytime Michael pushes back on Kelly's opinions, she throws a hissy fit, and then they get in the pool together and make out. Heard's character is about as entertaining and useful as a tire rolling around inside a bathtub. Obviously, the film needed some eye candy, and she was snapped up into it because her stock in horror films is currently rising.

The movie isn't very entertaining on it's own, which is what makes it take so many steps down from the original. It's also very predictable. We know how this film will turn out, and it does nothing to try and spin us in another direction. David tries to hide his past, and true identity, but everytime someone asks too many questions, or looks him up on the internet crime sites, he quickly and callously dispatches of them. And because everyone in movies like this ahs to be oblivious to everything pretty much, he manages to do all of this without being caught, found out, or seen.

And even makes it back home just in time for dinner in some cases. The films ending is less than eventful, but does hold one surprise which is a surprise because the writers honestly believed that audiences would be clammoring and begging for a followup to this flick. Is "The Stepfather" a bad movie? No. Is it a good movie? No. It's a film that serves it's function and functions as expected, predicted, and thought to be. That, along with Walshes performance as the mentally cracked-up Stepfather, make it a film that follows the usual rules of the "suburban horror" subgenre, and seems to enjoy it's lack of originality.

If you know what to expect going into it, you should feel pretty empty coming out of it. It's a film you're sure to forget as you leave the cinema, but atleast it doesn't try to take itself seriously, or do something outside it's skill set. It sticks with what works for it's overall design, and that's better than trying to be new and innovative without the necessary tools to do so.

Positives:Walsh gives a good performance as David Harris. Sela Ward plays her role as Susan Harding pretty good also.

Negatives:Too predictable, too cliche, Amber Heard's character is extremely annoying, and the ending should've packed more of a punch than it did.

Overall:Two out of four stars.





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