With the unnerving ‘Stepfather’ franchise turning 30 today, we break down why it’s important to make time for daddy.
“Father knows best.”
The horror genre is comfortably experiencing an explosion of innovation that has given everything from retro creature features (The Witch, Lights Out), to claustrophobic morality plays (Lights Out, 10 Cloverfield Lane), to even aggressive blockbuster sequels (The Conjuring 2, Ouija: Origin of Evil) and nightmare slices of life (The Shallows) a resurgence of energy to bring them back from the dead. The business of frightening people has never been more lucrative and exciting. While gore and fear seem to be currently reigning supreme, the horror genre has clawed and pulled itself out of the ground to get to this point. The ‘80s are understandably a pivotal decade for horror that introduced many unassuming audience members to what the genre was capable of doing. Horror aficionados clamor and praise ‘80s staples like A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Thing, Poltergeist, Re-Animator, and a morgue’s worth of other choices, but a title that flies under most people’s radars in spite of it spawning a trilogy and a 2009 remake, is Joseph Ruben’s The Stepfather. Ruben’s film offers up a sophisticated, disturbing look at how the humble American Dream can get so perverted. This warped mission statement on the dangers that lie within the home would ignite the public’s fascination with the burgeoning “intimacy thriller” subgenre of horror that would grow to consume the tail-end of the ‘80s and much of the ‘90s. With Ruben’s invasive take on horror turning thirty years old today, what better opportunity to re-visit the series of films that his cult classic would inspire? Father knows best, after all.
Written by Donald E. Westlake (who would go on to pen the screenplay for The Grifters, as well as authoring literally dozens of commendable mystery and crime novels) and directed by Joseph Ruben, the down-to-earth horror film was actually loosely based on the real-life atrocities of murderer, John List. List astonishingly murdered his wife, three children, and mother in their home in 1971. His crime was so meticulously planned and conceived that nearly a month had passed after his murders before anyone noticed that something had happened to the family. List disappeared after his crime and wasn’t discovered and apprehended until 18 years later while he was remarried under a new identity, presumably about to pull off the same scheme. Fortuitously, an episode of America’s Most Wanted tipped off people about List, eventually leading to his capture and conviction in 1989. List’s rationale for his murders was that he believed his family was falling out of the grace of God and that by murdering them he was actually saving their souls and securing them a place in Heaven. None of this spiritual angle of List’s actions is apparent in The Stepfather films, but the rest of List’s crimes act as a pretty effective blueprint of these films.
Perhaps the reason that The Stepfather feels so distinct is that Ruben really wasn’t interested in crafting yet another slasher film to add to the growing heap. Ruben was even super reluctant to sign onto the film for this reason, but obviously came around on the matter. Ruben attempts to rise above the norm and craft a film that’s actually saying something and he mostly succeeds in that matter. The Stepfather acts as a great sort of meditation on this idea from the late ‘80s and ‘90s about homegrown terror hiding in seemingly innocuous places like the suburbs or the stereotypical American family. The Stepfather is all about someone new coming into the picture and how that person can literally be the boogeyman.
The film kicks off with an that encapsulates the entire movie in a matter of seconds. The film presents a man covered in blood very casually washing himself clean in the middle of the day while he proceeds to completely change his appearance and create a new persona. We immediately figure out that this is an individual that moves from family to family, killing them, and re-inventing himself and starting over like some sort of T-1000 of family slaughter. The film doesn’t tell us why Jerry is the way that he is. We don’t need to know why. But in those opening minutes we know absolutely everything that we need to about Terry O’Quinn’s Jerry Blake. In fact, Westlake’s original script contained flashbacks scenes depicting Jerry suffering an abusive childhood, acting as some sort of explanation as to why he’s so broken and fixated on families, but the decision to leave these out leads to a much more disturbing picture.
The Stepfather establishes what it is and its eerily sterile tone right from the jump. This introduction scene goes by entirely without dialogue but by the time we see the carnage that Jerry has brought upon this innocent family, you yourself can’t help but scream in horror. The camera even lingers on a slaughtered little boy to hammer in the point that Jerry is a monster. The film just as easily could have started with the following scene where Jerry is meeting the Maine family, while you are left to jump to conclusions and wonder if something is up with him. The film wants you to know that Jerry is rotten and that the Maines are in danger. This inherently puts you on Stephanie, the suspicious daughter’s, side as she pleads that something is wrong with Jerry, which is a strong angle that helps power the film along rather than some is she crazy? type of story.
A lot of this film is aided by the fact that Terry O’Quinn absolutely kills it in his performance. It’s nice to see him occupying this sort of role before LOST made him relatively a household name. His work here is a firm reminder that he’s wonderful as an intimidating villain. O’Quinn delivers so many detached, intense stares throughout the film that go a long way. Jerry is also consistently whistling throughout the film which is the perfect sort of quirk for a character of this nature (it’s worth noting that Ruben originally wanted Jerry to whistle Streisand’s “The Way We Were,” but the rights were too expensive. This is just kind of nuts considering how crucial an ingredient Jerry’s whistling is to the films). Jerry’s the sort of extreme character where there are prolonged scenes of him wandering the neighborhood, smiling at families and watching the world around him, yet other moments where he’ll turn an innocent goodnight kiss into an attempted rape.
The Stepfather really plays into the brutal side of what Jerry is doing by preying on this innocent family that he’s manipulated his way into. The film wants you to feel bad for Susan Maine by having her talking about how heartbroken she was after her husband died and how she’s finally found someone new and let herself open up. The film lets her gush about her happiness while you’re left knowing that Jerry’s a sociopath and just playing this family. Jerry smugly works his way through clever lines like, “I didn’t exist before I met you,” which is more true than Susan can realize. Later on she has pieces of dialogue like, “I know him. This guy can’t live without family,” which becomes a much crazier statement when you break it down and consider what Jerry is doing here. There’s also a pointedly disturbing scene where Stephanie is distracted by the sound of Jerry and her mother having sex. As she tries to tone them out, the camera passes by a framed picture of her deceased father that she keeps nearby. The film really wants to make clear how fragile and wounded this family is, which is again why it works so well. You really don’t want to see Stephanie and her mother get killed.
On that note, while Ruben is determined to not create just another generic slasher film, there’s still plenty of thoughtfully executed murder scenes and just downright upsetting moments when “Scary Jerry” is at play. It’s usually the topic of family that acts as the trigger that sets Jerry off. There’s a that involves a 2×4 and has some pretty impressive make-up work in play. There’s another beat towards the end of the film where Jerry beats a door down and bursts through a window that act as super intimidating moments that really work well. There’s also this strange running element where Jerry builds birdhouses that are replicas of the homes of his murder victims, which is an extremely bizarre, albeit welcome touch to the character.
Most of this film functions by its tense atmosphere of worrying if Jerry is going to snap and if these people are going to be okay. There’s an extremely powerful moment where a confused Jerry lets out, “Wait a minute…Who am I here?” as if he’s some sort of malfunctioning robot. His frantic response afterwards makes for some undeniably strong, unnerving horror. In fact, the whole showdown between Jerry and his family that ends the film’s final act is really just brought on by Jerry messing up and losing it. Ruben shows no sympathy by ending on the aggressive note of Stephanie needing to murder Jerry, her stepfather, after she thinks she’s just lost her mother, with Jerry’s final words being “I love you” before he checks out. It’s safe to say that Stephanie is going to be pretty messed up, that’s for sure. The film’s final note of Stephanie cutting down Jerry’s birdhouse, while beautifully framed and composed, feels pretty damn silly to be honest. The Stepfather’s message of family and trust is more than clear by this point that trying to imbue a birdhouse of all things with more meaning than it’s worth is a puzzling visual to go out on.
Ruben’s film was enough of a success that two years later, a sequel was in production, with Ruben out of the director’s chair, but O’Quinn still in the infamous role of “Jerry Blake.” Stepfather II: Make Room for Daddy was originally considered to go the direct-to-video route, but ended up finding itself in theaters after all. Curiously, Jeff Burr, the film’s director was consulted for the job before a script had even been written. Apparently Max Reid of Wild Thing fame was also in contention for the gig at one point, but Burr is a great get and who you want in this situation. The guy is a pro when it comes to horror sequels, being responsible for a lot of underrated gems like, Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, Pumpkinhead II, and Puppet Master 4 and 5.
Stepfather II follows the same basic meet-then-murder trajectory that its predecessor does. It arguably is a simpler, lazier film in a lot of ways than the original, but it’s also more effectively constructed with Burr revealing more of a voice than Ruben does. It’s kind of crazy that this film has a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes while the original has a rather impressive 86%. Not to detract from what the first film achieves, but Stepfather II does such a good job at elevating the material, with Burr genuinely adding something new to the film. It’s a little boggling to look at this picture receiving nearly the exact opposite reception, when it contains so much of the same DNA as the original.
The film brilliantly begins by playing old lines of Jerry’s dialogue over the opening credits, mixing saccharine, sweet lines with his more violent, macabre ones. This is paired with a well edited recollection of the end of the original film before showing us that Jerry is in fact still alive and trying to recover in a psychiatric hospital. In that sense Burr’s film feels a lot like the journey and themes that are also explored in Psycho II, with this film inevitably being about redemption, and if it’s possible. Stepfather II forces you to empathize with this maybe-monster as he attempts to heal. Jerry’s doctors attempt to understand exactly what makes him tick, and by proxy, what made the first film so compelling in the first place. The opening direction of the film is much more about trying to help Jerry rather than condemn him. It’s a beautifully tragic game of chicken that the film plays over this first act, with eloquent dialogue like, “The eternal optimist believes that he can fix whatever’s broken. So he keeps on trying,” underscoring it all.
It’s a much more sophisticated, deep story than the original film in this regard, only it’s an angle that’s quickly ditched like some old identity of Jerry’s, as he escapes care and gets up to his family murdering shenanigans. It’s a great intro that’s much better than simply starting with Jerry—now Gene Clifford—already on the outside. As the first film lets us know, Jerry needs a family, so watching him squirm in this new context as he fails to have one forces him to visit some very dire extremes. Impressively though, Stepfather II quickens its pace and chooses not to limit itself. The picture might be guilty of operating much more like a generic slasher, but a much larger, more negligent body count isn’t always a bad thing, especially for a film that’s trying to make a point.
It’s a little shocking just how damn cavalier Jerry/Gene is about murder this time around. It’s like his first response to every problem he faces, not to mention that he’d be such a suspect in all of these cases, especially with him being the new out of place guy in town. It’s kind of ridiculous that Jerry determines his new resting place by watching a gameshow and hearing about the idyllic town that’s mentioned in one of the prize packages. It’s also pretty laughable at just how many single mother families Jerry seems to unwittingly encounter. The film makes it seem like they’re the only sort of families that are out there. Jerry manages to somehow insert himself as some sort of divorce counsellor therapist in this new community (how he got hired for such a job is a situation far too implausible for the film to explore), basically acting as an excuse to put him around a lot of vulnerable women. Stepfather II doesn’t care about these details though, with the breakdown and murder set pieces being its understandable priority.
Gene finds himself clashing with Carol, his new unsuspecting target (who he meets through the dating service Videodate-Tronics—hello 1989), and her son Todd (who is a glowing caricature of skateboarding and denim jacket ‘80s coolness) rather quickly. Accordingly, there are number of gleefully unhinged scenes where Jerry goes to his garage to do woodworking in a frantic panic after he freaks out over something. These scenes make for some great chaotic visuals, including a ridiculous bit where Jerry takes a picture of Carol and Todd and repeatedly bashes it with a hammer as he screams, “Make room for daddy!” This is basically brought on over nothing too, highlighting just how fragile Gene is through this film. It’s a lot tenser than its predecessor.
Burr makes the most of all of this by utilizing evocative lighting, camerawork, and angles during Jerry’s manic murders. The film employs some great editing and juxtapositions too, like an image of a car being demolished (with a body in its trunk) fading into an image of a piece of paper being crumpled up into a ball and thrown away. There are a lot of scenes where you can’t help but be like, “What is going on and why is any of this happening?” but it’s all shot in such a stunning, gleeful manner with O’Quinn totally selling it all and making it work. Burr heightens all of this material in a way that feels like he’s as deranged and obsessed as Jerry is himself. It’s a perspective that greatly aids the subject matter. One moment sees Jerry giving Todd a pep talk on how to be happier that falls immediately after he’s murdered the boy’s father. It’s Grade-A sociopathic behavior that even hints at a twisted future where Todd will carry on the horrors that Jerry is perpetuating here.
One particularly creative scene involves the depiction of a Maddy’s (a friend of Carol’s) death. Burr utilizes moody slow motion not unlike how David Lynch moodily sometimes depicts death. Then he repeatedly cuts to shots of a photo of Carol, as if she is disapprovingly looking down upon her friend. It places Carol implicitly within Maddy’s murder, something that gains resonance considering she is in a way responsible due to getting involved with Jerry and having him cross paths with Maddy as a result. Apparently after early screenings of the film there were complaints regarding the lack of blood in the film. The Weinsteins demanded reshoots, which Burr refused to comply with, with O’Quinn also echoing the same opinion. As a result, when the Weinsteins brought in another director to film these extra bloody bits, they’re left lacking due to compensating for O’Quinn’s absence. Admittedly, I do think that these additions help the film, but they certainly weren’t needed. Burr still manages to get his vision across.
I love so much that the film’s final showdown takes place at Jerry and Carol’s wedding, with all of this bloodshed happening to a bunch of people in tuxedos and bridal wear. For a story that’s so obsessed with family to have its conclusion in this house of matrimony as organs blare in the background makes for a strong visual that really sticks with you. All of these pretty wedding elements getting covered in blood amounts to a powerful final scene. The film even has the guts to conclude with Todd, a young boy, killing a man with a hammer, so kudos there. Once more Jerry’s “final” words are something poetically sweet as he attempts to cling onto the idea of family more than anything else.
The Stepfather and Stepfather II make for a strong double feature, but Stepfather 3 takes a noticeable hit in quality, even if it still does provide some worthwhile moments. Arriving three years after Stepfather II, this installment is a made-for-TV movie and its budgetary limitations are felt accordingly. On top of which, Terry O’Quinn has finally had enough at this point and doesn’t reprise his role as the murderous stepfather (who’s operating under the name Keith Grant this time around), with the woefully inferior Robert Wightman stepping in to replace him. The director choice also isn’t anything to get too excited about, with Guy Magar taking the helm for this entry. Magar did plenty of TV movies, with his horror claim to fame being the ’87 film, Retribution, which deals with the ghost of a gangster possessing an artist in order to carry out his murders.
Stepfather 3 attempts to go one step further than its predecessors by having Jerry/Gene/Keith not only break out of the same insane asylum again, but then also adds to this by having him solving his problems with the law by having his face surgically altered so his identity swapping abilities are aided even further. It’s also a sort of brilliant in-canon explanation as to why Jerry looks different this time, other than “Terry O’Quinn isn’t involved in Part 3.” It’s some very efficient writing, as silly as it may be. Right from the start of this movie a huge drop in quality is felt with it being pretty difficult to even figure out what’s going on. Like seriously, try explaining why this death is shown in such a busy, confusing manner? The movie begins in a needlessly ominous fashion and looks like it’s taking place in some post-apocalyptic bunker. The plastic surgery scene here is extremely hokey with constant close ups on tools and Jerry’s struggling eyes. Plus, the doctor is smoking a ton. I guess it’s kind of worth it for the messed up visual of Jerry’s bandaged face though. Ten minutes are spent on this superfluous prologue, which really drags the film down from the start. On top of that, it’s pretty nuts that Jerry’s reintroduction after this point is in a full Easter Bunny costume, with this also being how Christine falls in love with him. He looks so damn ridiculous and creepy here that it’s kind of insane that she’s fall for him like this.
Jerry is up his same old tricks, with his routine almost feeling comical this time around. He’s reading a magazine called Suburban Families during his reconstructive surgery and when he arrives in the peaceful Deer View, it’s practically swarming in children. One such child is Christine’s son, Andy, who’s really the star of the show here. He’s this wheelchair-bound child that’s this ‘90s-drenched version of cool who might as well be Wheels from out of the Burger King Kids Club. Andy is also obsessed with solving crimes and murders, conveniently enough. He’s also got a weird relationship with the priest from church, Father Brennan, as the two of them set up dates together and casually discuss hypothetical murder. Brennan is the boy’s best friend, which no one seems to take any exception with. Andy’s pursuit to take down Jerry and keep his mother safe is actually compelling and one of the more engaging threads from all three of these films. He’s a character that certainly stands out and the film at least succeeds on that merit where you want to see the poor boy triumph.
In this film all of Jerry’s murders are just awful with him delivering some stilted one-liners like, “Silence is golden,” after each one. He’s killing people in broad daylight, outside, and nobody seems to care! At one point he’s ready to kill a woman at his place of work while there are plenty of other people around. He’s so damn sloppy this time, making constant mistakes, and really just bringing on his own problems. I suppose if you truly believe Jerry’s insane and dealing with some problem, the psychology behind it probably would have him making such mistakes the third time along now. I don’t think we’re supposed to be giving Jerry’s sloppy actions this much thought or credit though.
A very weird, callous energy powers this film and as Jerry/Keith tries to further dominate this family, some really unusual scenes take place. One scene sees Jerry knocking Andy out of his wheelchair and forcing him to walk—insisting that he’s capable of this—which is just nonsense and really uncomfortable to watch. Like, it’s just scary, bad parenting. It is effective for just how much it messes up Andy and makes him hate Jerry though. Jerry continues his horrible behavior towards Andy in another scene by simultaneously telling him that his friend, Father Brennan, is dead, and then also takes away his computer—his only source of joy. It’s a devastating moment and maybe the most emotional scene out of the whole trilogy! And on the topic of computers, the computer science in this film is insane! There’s a scene where Andy scans a picture of Jerry where we have to see the same thing go on four times so it can read the image as a red, green, and blue, composite before pairing it all together into a color photo. I don’t even know if scanners worked this way at one point, but it makes for a bizarre, lengthy scene. More unusual behavior in Jerry results in him moaning, “I want you to have a baby. You must be a family. I want to be a family,” while he’s having sex with his wife while she looks super disturbed and scared through it all. Furthermore, this is a movie where the word “daddy” is being said constantly. Never “dad” or “father,” just daddy, and it’s weird.
Stepfather 3’s final act happens to take place on Father’s Day, which is a pretty inspired idea that I’m surprised didn’t come up in either of the first two films. The conclusion sees Andy pushing over Jerry on a ladder and knocking him into a wood chipper, so once again, a child gets to become a murderer. It’s not all bad news for Andy though, because he does inexplicably gain the ability to walk after going through all of this trauma, so there’s that. Plus, him delivering the line, “Happy Father’s Day, slugger” to his now dead stepfather is the perfect way to end this film. Stepfather 3 might have seen even less diminishing returns than the previous two films, which unsurprisingly saw the franchise going dormant. That being said, there’s still something that’s inherently fascinating about this premise, and it’s for that exact reason that the property would find itself being rebooted in 2009.
The remake of The Stepfather pretty much amounts to some slash-by-numbers PG-13 cash grab for teens, but it’s role in all of this is still worth touching upon. This remake sees Nelson McCormick directing, who has a great, great body of work as a television director, but his remake of Prom Night from the year before is clearly what got him this gig. Interestingly though, after this film he’s shifted back entirely to TV.
McCormick’s update to the film changes things up a bit in several ways, like the single mom having several children, with her oldest son being in his late teens, much more aware, and is the main driving force this time around. This sort of movie is old fashioned in nature and feels like something naturally built for the ’80s, so it comes across as feeling thin and derivative in a modern update. This film at least has the wife saying things like, “Am I crazy to want to marry this guy after six months?” whereas much more happens in less time in the original trilogy. It’s also appreciated that the film addresses how the stepfather, David’s, many “family first” sayings are corny and out of touch presently. They’re at least a little toned down. The picture also very expectedly plays into its demographic by turning up its sex appeal by having Michael, the eldest son, have a super hot girlfriend, rather than resorting to lonely widow’s for the film’s titillation. The family in the film has a pool and Amber Heard honestly wears like ten different bikinis and underwear combos throughout the film. Every swimming scene (of which they are numerous) has her in a new suit.
Dylan Walsh is the one portraying David, and while he shines in a few select moments, he still doesn’t rise to Terry O’Quinn’s level. There’s an effective kill where he pushes an elderly woman down the stairs to brutal break her neck, only to then smother her to death in order to finish the job. The film also wisely still contains the classic, “Wait a minute…Who am I here?” breakdown moment from the original, but it’s handled much less effectively. There are some mildly artistic moments here that hint at a deeper film, like when David has dinner with his new family and sees the face of his former victims on them all, but it’s too quick a scene that not enough is done with to have much of a significant impact. It doesn’t help that the film is incredibly vague towards what David’s endgame is. Like is he waiting to get married before killing all of them? What’s the hold up? Why not just kill them now rather than simply messing with everyone?
As stated earlier, this trend of intimacy thrillers would hit a fever pitch in the ‘90s with films like Single White Female, Fatal Attraction, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Consenting Adults, Sleeping With the Enemy (also written by Westlake), and many more saturating the marketplace. In time, horror’s focus would shift towards the resurgence of slashers, and then its fascination with torture porn and evil strangers as opposed to a tainted family, with titles like Hostel representing the other end of what The Stepfather was providing. The Stepfather remake came around after this time and clearly didn’t connect, hence its lack of sequels. Interestingly, now intimacy has shifted into the form of the Internet and the slew of social media horror films that have come up as a result.
That’s not to say that another version of The Stepfather couldn’t be done now and in a way that finds mass appeal (although I don’t think it’s in need of a reboot—it works much better as a relic from its time), you’d just have to go that much further with it. The Stepfather is an intentionally thin premise, but digging into Jerry’s background and spending more alone time with him would be the right approach. Better yet, do it as a limited event TV series or miniseries like what Wolf Creek did recently. Spend a number of hours watching this man working his way into someone’s family knowing that the season is going to end with their murder. Hell, that actually sounds decent. Add a retired detective that’s on the stepfather’s trail because he’s chosen the guy’s daughter as his prey and you’ve got me on board 100%. In the meantime, we’ve still got the original films, and if you can’t make room for daddy, at least make room for a few hours of tense, invasive horror that will have you second guessing every future soulmate you encounter.
