Tag: Sissy Spacek

The Stepfather (1987)

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.

The Medusa Touch (1978)

THE MEDUSA TOUCH (1978) *1/2
I could only empathize with Richard Burton’s character in The Medusa Touch in one way.

At some point during The Medusa Touch, I realized that I was seeing a cinematic disaster before my very eyes and I began staring right back at the screen especially when Burton’s John Morlar trotted out his telekinetic powers. Through my telecinematic eyes, I flashed back on Billy the Kid Vs. Dracula when the Old Count, played by veteran John Carradine, overacted with his eyes just like Burton did 12 years later. I laughed at both films more than I have at films that were aiming to make me laugh and failed.

Whether or not one appreciates The Medusa Touch boils down to how one feels about the film’s heavy flashback structure and the Burton lead performance.

I don’t know, personally speaking, I soured on the flashbacks by about the third time Lino Ventura’s French detective Monsieur Brunel encountered a character who recalled a past event, normally a disaster, involving John Morlar at various evolutionary stages in his telekinesis. We know, though, with dread certainty that whenever there’s a flashback, somebody’s going to die. Morlar’s parents, his wife and her lover, Morlar’s neighbor, Morlar’s enemies at school, et cetera. Of course, the deaths grow progressively in number and more sensational until Morlar crashes planes into buildings and reduces cathedrals to rubble.

As far as Burton’s performance, I never felt much of anything for John Morlar and that blame falls on the shoulders of the man who could be both one of the best and one of the worst actors in the world before his death in 1984. I feel even more admiration for Sissy Spacek’s work as the title character in Carrie, after watching Burton go down in flames in The Medusa Touch. Spacek creates such overwhelming empathy for her character that we get caught up in the predominantly teenybopper melodrama and we truly care about what happens to Carrie White. We don’t want to see any more misfortune befall this character, and we are on her side when the pigs’ blood flies late in the picture. Morlar could not even rouse me to a superficial hatred that immediately disappears at the end credits, and by all rights he should have. I just heard Burton mouthing dialogue and being guilty of worse overacting with his telekinesis.

Not only does Morlar have telekinesis, he’s apparently unstoppable. Nobody can kill him in this picture, though two main characters give it the old college try. Morlar takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Simply unbelievable. Morlar spends almost the entire movie in a hospital bed on life support and that helps explain why Burton gives his performance basically in flashback; it should be mentioned though Morlar’s brain occasionally causes the attached monitor to go schizoid. Nobody casts a star the stature of Burton and then have him bed ridden for the film’s duration.

Between telekinesis and invincibility, I found little to believe in during The Medusa Touch. I just wanted it to be over so I could quickly begin the healing process.