THE STEPFATHER (1987) ****
Every now and then, a horror film will feature a performance that earns widespread critical acclaim and official recognition typically not bestowed on actors or actresses within horror films.
For example, we’ve had Fredric March in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Anthony Perkins in Psycho, Sissy Spacek in Carrie, Anthony Hopkins in Magic, and Jeff Goldblum in The Fly. We should include The Stepfather star Terry O’Quinn with those distinguished performances. He’s so magnificently malevolent that he elevates The Stepfather a notch or two above the average horror thriller and makes it a transcendent exploitation film.
O’Quinn is one of those veteran character actor types who creates the stereotypical reaction, “Hey, I know that guy! He looks so familiar and he was in. …” But most people can’t quite name him! That joke told about John Malkovich in Being John Malkovich applies even more to O’Quinn. Let’s see, aside from a pair of Stepfather movies, O’Quinn appeared in Young Guns, The Rocketeer, and Tombstone, as well as numerous TV shows and movies.
O’Quinn plays a real piece of work in The Stepfather and the movie begins with him assuming his next guise Jerry Blake, after he murdered his family. We see the bloody aftermath, so there’s no doubt about the identity of the killer and we’re left waiting for the moment Blake again explodes into violence. We’re also waiting for when his new family discovers his old identity and his bloody murders, all roads leading to a final showdown that seems obligatory for any thriller since Halloween. That macabre interest level starts with the standard One Year Later title card.
O’Quinn effectively shows that he wants to be a straight, clean-cut, self-effacing man with the All-American nuclear family traditionally identified with Father Knows Best, Leave It to Beaver, and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, also familiar through many, many other sitcoms. At the same time, we know that it’s 99.9 percent likely he’ll gradually snap, crack, and pop when familial disappointment hits dear old Dad again, so a lot of the fun involves Blake’s tension between establishing or slaughtering his new family.
Jill Schoelen’s spitfire teenage stepdaughter Stephanie naturally sees right through Jerry Blake and her character earns our sympathy and empathy almost immediately after we learn her biological father died only a year before this Blake fellow entered the picture and romanced her mother. Of course, nobody quite believes Stephanie, who gets expelled from school for her latest punch out, when she expresses that something’s not quite right about her stepfather. Schoelen plays a 16-year-old girl, so it’s a little creepy when director Joseph Ruben and screenwriter Donald E. Westlake give her a nude scene late in the picture; granted, Schoelen carried on the grand old movie tradition of a teenager portrayed by somebody at least several years older.
Shelley Hack complements O’Quinn and Schoelen and completes the trio of solid performances, in the role of the new Mrs. Blake. She plays a tricky role, perhaps just as tricky as the title role, because her discovery of the truth must be timed absolutely perfect. Otherwise, we see that she’s a dolt and feel she deserves her fate. The Stepfather times it just perfect, and it gets so many things right that we bask in the presence of a superior horror film.
Attack of the Killer Librarian 