THE STEPFATHER
Makes me glad my parents are still together!
Sometimes just one aspect of a film can take an otherwise mediocre film and raise it to the level of something approaching extraordinary. When I first saw this film in high school, I was awestruck - it seemed like the perfect example of the form to me at the time. Years and viewings later, its flaws have become apparent and numerous; but thanks to Terry O'Quinn, it's still a terrific film.
The first scene shows us O'Quinn stepping into the bathroom and washing himself up. His hands are bloody, his hair a little frazzled, and whatever just happened, he's intent on washing away every trace. He shaves off his beard, trims his hair, and calmly packs up his old clothes in a suitcase. He steps out into the hall, and takes the time to return a stray toy boat to its chest. He slowly makes his way down the stairs, passing several straightly hung pictures, then one crooked one, then a bloody handprint. What we see on the main floor makes it clear just what went down, and he walks away nonchalantly (whistling "Camptown Races", no less), off to a new town, a new life.
His name is Jerry Blake, and a year later, we see him married again. Along with the wife Shelley Hack comes a 16-year-old daughter, Stephanie (Jill Schloen). She's a rather difficult girl - she gets expelled about thirty minutes into the movie. This is somewhat of a challenge to Jerry, since he seems fixated on attaining one thing - a stable, traditional, 50's-style nuclear family. And as that introductory scene illustrated, he doesn't take well to disappointment.
Now, like I said, flaws in this movie are all over the place. The acting for most of the cast is rather patchy (Hack delivers the line "He is your father now and you'll respect him!" so pathetically that it approaches camp), and writing by Donald E. Westlake is very spotty indeed (although it does have some clever moments, like "Which way am I facing?" "North."). One person books an appointment with real-estate agent Jerry to surreptitiously investigate him, and just moments after discussing his own claim that he's single, says a sentence that starts with "My wife...". The way one dead body is disposed of does not look likely to lead any coroner to believe that the death was accidental. Our heroine comes across as whiny and aggravating, when she should be coming across as fiery and willful.
Worst of all is the time-filler of the "old brother-in-law" subplot. Stephen Shellen plays the brother of Jerry's last, ill-fated wife. This must take up about twenty-five minutes of valuable screen time, and while it's interesting to watch him cleverly track Blake down to his present whereabouts, it all amounts to zero. Zilch. Nada. It brings to mind Scatman Crothers in The Shining - what, exactly, was the point of this character other than to bloat the movie? At least Crothers got to supply his movie's title. This guy? Nothing. (it doesn't help that the movie's score zips uncharacteristically into some sort of uptempo syntho-pop thing in one of this "important" scenes)
Director Joseph Ruben inserts some wily flair into the proceedings - some shots are slyly used to subtly invoke memories of what we saw in the introductory scene. And there's one scene of Jerry eating dinner which is one of the best illustrations of pent-up tension I've seen - just a slow, relentless zoom as he cuts into his meal, looks over at his wife, and over at his stepdaughter, eyes only letting a small fraction of the rage we know he's feeling leak out. It's moments like this that make one regret just how little Ruben's done with his talent over the years - after this, he basically just milked the formula, going back to the trough twice to pioneer the "...from Hell" subgenre, giving us the ex-husband from Hell (Sleeping With The Enemy) and the brat from Hell (The Good Son). All this from the guy who gave us Dreamscape, no less - one of the most fun and imaginative movies I've seen.
No sir, this isn't Ruben's movie - it's O'Quinn's. I don't think I've ever seen a psycho character so complex, and rendered so skillfully by the actor. Blake is a man whose identity works (and doesn't work) on so many levels, even he can't keep it straight. There's the side he shows his present family, the side he shows a future prospect, a mostly self-contained fantasy he actually buys into slightly, the wrathful monster he lets out when he's alone in the wood shop, and any possible combination of the four when he forgets just where - and who - he is. We've seen a lot of multiple-personality psychos in the movies, but none quite like this.
One of the things so special about this performance is how well Jerry manages to create some sympathy for him even though we know he's a whacko. We're actually kind of happy for him when he scores his little victories with his new family; not because it'll spare the ladies from a premature demise for a few more days, but because it's actually kind of sweet. His "family man" persona is so convincing, it's hard for us to wish anything on him but the perfect family he so desires.
O'Quinn's performance also helps make the violent scenes all that much more effective. The moments of violence are shocking because they're so sudden (particularly one moment when he lashes out with a telephone). It can be gruesome sometimes (notably, a bludgeoning with a 2x4), but in another movie, where gruesomeness is the order of the day, we wouldn't really notice it that way. The Stepfather forces the viewer to notice it.
It's too bad that the ending of the film so lets him down; not only in terms of action (while it's pretty much inevitable that the structure of his personality is going to break down, it's disappointing to see his reasoning facilities break down similarly) but in terms of dialogue. I mean, "You've been a very bad girl"? I expect better one-liners than that from Freddy Krueger. I'd actually feel bad if people walked out of the movie at the end with that final impression of the character.
Still, for the bulk of the film, this is a fascinating performance, the kind which would easily win Oscars if, y'know, the world was perfect. (For God's sake, Patch fucking Adams was nominated that year) (well, not really, but another Williams role which was pretty much the same thing) The Stepfather might not make a very enthusiastic recommendation without him, but thanks to O'Quinn, this is really a movie to see.
Obviously filmed in Vancouver, this movie spawned two sequels - the first of which was surprisingly good for a rehash (I'll have to give that another look; it's been a while), the second, rather poor and clearly hampered by introducing another actor to play Jerry (via the miracle of cosmetic surgery). You can't replace Terry O'Quinn. You just can't.