Review: The Stepfather

Susan (Shelley Hack) thinks she has married the perfect man in realtor Jerry Blake (Terry O’Quinn). Her troublesome teen daughter Stephanie (Jill Schoelen) however, is convinced that Jerry is a creep. In fact, she comes to suspect that Jerry may be a serial killer who tries to create the ‘perfect family’ and kills when met with any kind of deviation from that apple pie image. Blu Mankuma turns up briefly as a detective, Stephen Shellen is a young man from Jerry’s past, and Charles Lanyer is Stephanie’s well-meaning therapist.

 

One of two terrific domestic threat horror-thrillers from director Joseph Ruben (the other being the underrated “Sleeping With the Enemy”), this 1987 film is one of the best B-movies of the 1980s. Scripted by author Donald E. Westlake (who also wrote the script for “The Grifters”), it also boasts one of the genuinely unsung great villain performances by Terry O’Quinn. He’s brilliant – Sly, creepy, batshit crazy, and overall far more 3D than most villains in this sort of thing. He’s particularly good at reaction shots as we see his mind racing to react to situations. O’Quinn is utterly convincing as the All-American stepdad but equally convincing when the façade drops. Now mostly a veteran of TV, O’Quinn has had other good roles (“Lost”, most prominently) but ‘Jerry Blake’ is O’Quinn’s signature role and performance. In my opinion he was robbed of an Oscar nomination, and I can easily say that with a straight face. It’s a great performance. The other key here besides O’Quinn is Westlake’s sly, macabre sense of humour. There’s lots of clever, sly lines for O’Quinn like ‘I didn’t exist until I met you’ and the classic ‘Who am I here?’ as ‘Jerry’ struggles to juggle his various personas that he has set up for himself in transition from one family to the next. I guarantee Westlake had read up on his true crime stories in preparation for this – scenes of ‘Jerry’ losing his cool down in his shed/basement for instance ring true from things I’ve read over the years. Ditto the central concept of killers living double lives etc (I’ve subsequently read that indeed the film was based on a killer named John List). The scary thing is that the film isn’t as much as an exaggeration as you might like it to be.

 

The film has been stylishly directed by Ruben who seemed to have a knack for these slightly exaggerated domestic horror-thriller movies (“Sleeping With the Enemy”, “The Good Son” etc). The supporting cast includes terrific work by the immensely appealing Jill Schoelen (she’s like a young, husky-voiced version of Sally Field), and solid performances by Charles Lanyer and (more briefly) American-born Canadian character actor Blu Mankuma. On the downside, Shelley Hack’s performance as the mother/wife is so bad it’s almost ghastly. I also don’t think Stephen Shellen’s side character is remotely necessary, especially given how little use he ends up being by the end.

 

One of the best B-movies of the last 40 years in my view. Terry O’Quinn is outstanding – alternately chilling and morbidly funny, Donald Westlake’s script is clever and macabre.

 

Rating: B+