I expected a run of the mill, mindless, somewhat entertaining horror flick.  What I saw was a half-hearted failing effort to be more than that.  Cinemas at Halloween are becoming increasingly disappointing.  It seems that Christmas sees more Christmas themed movies than Halloween sees horror.  It should be the other way around.  Horror is an entire genre.  Make anything that’s suspenseful or scary, slap on a spooky advertising campaign and get to work.  There wasn’t even a horror film released on Halloween weekend this year.  Sure, October saw the release of Saw VI, Paranormal Activity and The Stepfather, but that’s not nearly enough.  Paranormal Activity was lucky to receive a wide release.  Saw is a ridiculous franchise on which I’ve given up hope.  Even Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2 was released outside of October.  And the Stepfather was only taken seriously by the actors.  Where’s the love for Halloween?

Since I’m certain I can knock out what’s good about The Stepfather in one paragraph, I’ll start with that.  For the most part, it had terrific casting.  Dylan Walsh plays the psychotic David Harris.  It’s a convincing, passionate performance.  In fact, Walsh is the only reason to finish the film once you’ve grown board with it.  The only reason the third act actually feels like it should is because Walsh raises the tension.  Personally I was hoping the characters would die long before the third act started.

The problems with this movie start to pile up around five minutes in.  During the first ten to fifteen minutes it’s revealed that David Harris is a murderer who switches his identity in order to assimilate into a family he ultimately becomes dissatisfied with and kills.  We also learn that the police have a difficult time tracking him because he pays for everything with cash, never lets his photo be taken, never leaves finger prints even though he’s not cautious about it, never gives out personal information like a social security number, and knows how to cancel a newspaper subscription.

It’s difficult to buy that the killer hasn’t been caught.  He’s sloppy.  I have to assume that finger prints only last for so long until they’re undetectable.  In the very first scene, after he kills his most recent family, he leaves by grabbing the door handle with his bare hand.  He even shaves before he leaves.  How can his DNA not be everywhere in the house?  It would have been more believable if we were never given how he accomplished his disappearing act after the murders.

Harris’s back story and real name are never given throughout the film, which I appreciated for the most part.  But no one else has back stories that extend past more than being previously troubled, which works for a little while until you realize those backgrounds will never be shared with the audience.  The leading lady Susan Harding (Sela Ward) is divorced when she meets David Harris.  Her ex-husband Jay (John Tenney) is apparently unreliable in some undefined way.  Sela’s eldest son Michael Harding (Penn Badgley) returns from military school for the summer where he had been sent for hanging out with the wrong crowd and engaging in undefined activities.  These characters are flat.  I’ve told you everything that is discovered throughout the film.

The film was an hour and forty minutes and it was way too long.  Most scenes served similar purposes to previous scenes.  And those two purposes were either establishing that the characters should or should not trust David Harris.  There is only so much circumstantial evidence that can be introduced into a movie before the audience gets board.  We need something solid to latch onto, something that demands a creative solution either by the killer or the potential victims.  I get the impression that the writer only had a vision of these characters as far as they applied to the killer’s opinion of what family should be.  That would be a good approach if this were a character study like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.  However, this can’t be a character study since every character is flat.  If they had spent more time delving into the potentials that were established the movie would have been a more entertaining experience.  As it stands, I must say that the writer was putting in repetitive scenes in order to make the proper screenplay length.  This is only reinforced by the fact that the camera angles are used to highlight the scantily clad bodies of Michael Harding and his girlfriend Kelly (Amber Heard).

They even include a sad attempt to establish a theme.  Harris is a little rough with Sela’s youngest boy Sean Harding (Braeden Lemasters).  Sela lets Harris know that physical punishment is never excusable when disciplining kids.  Whether you agree with that or not, no characters or events in the film are deep enough for this to be properly supported.

The Verdict: The Stepfather gets a 1.5 out of 5.  Despite the efforts of the actors there’s nothing to latch onto throughout the entire film.  Boredom is inevitable.  I recommend saving your money, whether you want to see it now or rent it in the future.

-Vince

Tags: Amber Heard, Braeden Lemasters, David Harris, Donald E. Westlake, Dylan Walsh, family, Halloween, Horror, J.S. Cardone, Jon Tenney, Movies, Nelson McCormick, October, Paige Turco, Paranormal Activity, Penn Badgley, Saw, Sela Ward, Sherry Stringfield, Skyler Samuels, Stepfather

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 1st, 2009 at 2:16 pm and is filed under Horror, Movies, Vincent. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.