THE STEPFATHER

 

THE STEPFATHER = B 

For a late 1980's suspense thriller this was pretty good. It had its ups and its downs, but overall it was an enjoyable film with more pros than cons. Loosely based on the murders of John List, the plot followed a believable enough story, even if some of the scenes within it were rather far fetched.  Terry O'Quinn played a schizophrenic psychopath with a fair amount of conviction.  

The film itself had two major flaws that kept it from being an A.  First and foremost the opening was so strong & so powerful that it was impossible for the rest of the film to match up.  The opening gave itself an unfair expectation to live up to. As an audience member you kept on waiting for the film to reach that height again, but it never does.  

The other flaw was in the brother-in-law character Jim. He was set up and developed so well, that it was inevitable that he would be a part of a dramatic, final showdown ending. Instead his demise was disappointingly anticlimactic. So anticlimactic that it makes you question his existence. I understand that the film wanted the Stepdaughter to come out the heroine at the end, but in the least he could have aided in her prevail or maybe even gotten in the way of it.  He did neither and that missed opportunity hurt the film. 

I also question what in the world the film makers were thinking by having a nude scene with Jill Schoelen.  Granted she was 24 at the time, but she was playing a 16 year old girl.  Was it really appropriate to show her in the nude? There's no way a film would get away with that today and I'm surprised that it got away with it then.   

O'Quinn's performance already mentioned, Schoelen did a good job of playing a confused, frustrated high school kid. Well into her mid-20's, I bought that she was still a young girl, transitioning into adulthood.  Charles Lanyer as Dr. Bondurant also did a very fine job in the film as well. I think more could have been done with his character as well, but it's not as much of a criticism as it is a simple matter of preference.  Stephen Shellen as Jim was a very interesting character, well played, that deserved a better ending than what he got. 

Revision could have done this film some good. The elements for an A film were there, they just weren't used properly.