Wasn’t your Mom always the person that could see the signs and know on a psychic level which people you could trust and which ones you needed to avoid? Well Susan Harding (played by Sela Ward) apparently busted her psychic meter because that’s really the only explanation one offer as to why a typically astute mother of three would allow a free-range psychopath into her home. The remake of The Stepfather isn’t just unbelievable, it’s laughably unbelievable. And I don’t care how much you hate your ex-husband, no woman, upon hearing her live-in boyfriend accused of manhandling her youngest son, would just shrug it off as the boyfriend’s trend for old-fashioned tendencies.
But then again, this is a dumb, dumb remake of a horror movie that wasn’t exactly Silence of the Lambs material the first time around anyway. The bonus was that Terry O’Quinn, who has since taken up the role of Island shaman John Locke on Lost to enormous acclaim, essayed the role of the evil step daddy. In this Stepfather, we get one of the overpriced plastic surgeons from Nip/Tuck, and not the vain, self-indulgent one with delusions of God-hood. Yes, let it be said that Dylan Walsh is no Terry O’Quinn, but then again who is? But perhaps the more important question is: exactly how many red flags does a guy have to send up the pole before even the dimmest among us admit that something ain’t quite right here.
The real shame of The Stepfather is that it makes a certain type of woman look dumb: the single mom. Whether they’re widowed or divorced, it seems as though the women preyed upon by David Harris/Grady Edwards/or whatever the devil his alias of the week is, are so desperate for a man that they’re able to overlook any number of warning signs. Walsh isn’t exactly playing a smooth criminal here because there are any number of boners that immediately tip you off that Harris is cracked, and that’s just a slip of the lips. To wit, what kind of man moves in to his girlfriend’s house and sets about putting up locked cabinets in her basement? Wouldn’t you ask this guy why he’s got locked doors in your house? If there’s ever a more clear cut case of “If it seems too good to be true…” this is it.
Okay, love is blind. But no matter how blind you are, you can still hear the avalanche coming. What about causality? Sure, if you’re slightly off-kilter husband smells a rat, ignoring him could be considered an acceptable reaction. But what about when your sister’s saying something’s fishy? Or your own son just returned from military school, because if he can’t spot a criminal by now he’s even more of a loss than mom. Penn Badgley, AKA: Lonely Boy of Gossip Girl fame, plays wayward son Michael, and naturally it’s his fresh set of eyes that sees Dan for the monster beneath the surface that he is. It’s a wonder he’s able to though because his sexy girlfriend Kelly spends 90 per cent of the movie either wet, in a two piece bathing suit, or parading around her bedroom in her underwear while talking on the phone. Way to go Stepfather, you’ve proven that Amber Heard is pretty to look at. And Megan Fox complains about being objectified.
Tearing apart The Stepfather on a critical level is a lot like stepping on an ant hill, it’s an activity far beyond purpose and you can barely think of a reason to do. It’s one of those movies that people on IMDB will create “100 Things I Learned From…” lists for. It’s a half-hearted remake of an 80s cult film that thinks it can improve on what’s come before with an even dimmer, gutless, PG-13 version. It’ll make you laugh and it’ll make you cry, but neither of those facts should be taken as a compliment of the artistic acumen of the director of the Prom Night remake and the writer of the odious metro-sexual he-witch movie The Covenant. But on the bright side, that’s one more lane remake down, at least a hundred more to go.
