The Stepfather 2009 (Remake) -Review

PLOT The Stepfather is about a delusional man with old fashion family values with absolutely no room for error. Should you disappoint him he may just re-paint your cute little house in your blood! REVIEW I just want to start off with saying that I really liked the original version of The Stepfather. So like with any remake I watch, especially if I liked the original I am going to watch with a critical eye. I don't expect a remake to be an exact copy of its original predecessor, because that would just kinda be pointless. But what I do…

Review Overview

Acting
Visuals / Camera
Sound
Story
Pacing / Editing
Characters
Entertainment Value / X-Factor
Mood / Atmosphere

Feels like a Lifetime movie.

2009 Remake of The Stepfather, starring Dylan Walsh. The film was everything the original Stepfather wasn't. In my opinion the spirit of Terry O'Quinns Stepfather was just not captured here at all. I would not watch again.

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PLOT

The Stepfather is about a delusional man with old fashion family values with absolutely no room for error. Should you disappoint him he may just re-paint your cute little house in your blood!

REVIEW

I just want to start off with saying that I really liked the original version of The Stepfather. So like with any remake I watch, especially if I liked the original I am going to watch with a critical eye. I don’t expect a remake to be an exact copy of its original predecessor, because that would just kinda be pointless. But what I do expect in a remake is for it to capture the essence of the original and not go off to much of its originality or add to much or take from the main character in the remake.

For example of this, Rob Zombies remakes. So with that being said, I would say the film held true to the story, right down to how the original started out. Man kills current family and is changing his identity and ready to move on to the next poor victims family. Also, the fact that they kept this Stepfather in the realtor business was a plus too. But not for long, as he starts to get nervous when they insist that he fill out his paperwork for tax purposes etc.

Now for what I didn’t like about this movie, the fact that they didn’t include the
creepy little whistling jingle “camptown lady sing this song do da, do da”.

I mean come on now, that was such a huge factor to the Stepfather in the original
its what helped to make him so eerily creepy and somewhat charming at the same time.

That’s like taking the “ki,ki,ki.. ma, ma, ma” out of Friday the 13th. So for me in my opinion that was a big disappointment.

I also didn’t think that this Stepfather was very convincing in his moments of rage and agitated phases. I just wasn’t feeling the “oh shit” factor when he would get upset. I also didn’t think he captured that villianistic charm or the evil smoothness of situations when they would go bad. Not like Terry O’Quinns version. I thought the prepping of the plans to kill this family and move on again was a bit bland also. Its like, well let me call the newspaper company and cancel my subscription because in doing that no one will be able to track me down. WTF? lol

He just popped in some colored contacts and shaved and thought, “no one will find me”. Terry O’Quinn’s version of the Stepfather was just much more believable and way more intense.

Finally, even though the movie lead you to believe he was changing the color of his hair, it didn’t look any different to me. So things like that in the movie seemed really silly in my opinion. It wouldn’t have if it were more believable and had some real conviction to back it. I also think there were just to many kids in this family to keep track of. Originally, the Stepfather tended to seek out single mothers with one child. Which worked better I think. But I don’t want to give to much away in case no one has seen this film yet. It is worth a watch despite the lack of intensity and flaws of the main character.

If you like Lifetime suspense movies then this is the movie for you! Kinda has that feel to it I think.

 

CAST

Dylan Walsh as David Harris

Sela Ward as Susan Harding

Penn Badgley as Michael Harding

Amber Heard as Kelly Porter

 

TRAILER:

About Lilith

Hello to all you horror fans out there! I go by the handle "Lilith", I am one of the original reviewers for TalkHorror.com. Since TH is back, I have resumed as part of the TH staff! Really happy to be back, I have missed the place! A bit about me as far as horror goes.... I am known for my old school horror ways. While I try not to be biased towards today's modern horror, sometimes it can come across. But I do try my best to bring honest, open minded opinions and thoughts to the table. One thing you will learn about me is that I am very open minded and strongly opinionated. I also have a very twisted sense of humor that I am known for. My sense of humor doesn't have to many limits. Back to horror... I tend to enjoy horror movies mainly from the 70's and 80's. I feel some of the greatest horror movies came from this time period. I find them to be more scary, creepy and more realistic and believable. Back then people making these movies seemed to take more time, effort and care in their project. Hard work had to be put into the special FX and mostly done manually. Not like today's horror, where CGI is getting overused because it is easier and faster. For me, it takes something away from the movie. I have seen good horror movies with potential become ruined because of to much CGI. I am also not a big fan of remakes and found footage films. I do give them a chance, but the majority seems to fall short. Some start off with some great potential, but then end up losing me by the end of the movie. Very few I end up actually liking. I also am a huge collector of horror movies. I collect rare hard to find OOP VHS movies. I have quite a few rare VHS. I also collect DVDs as well. I do not have a lot of horror memorabilia otherwise, but I do have a few things. Mostly the problem is that I have ran out of room, lol! I have around 1200 horror movies alone, VHS & DVD. That isn't even counting the regular movies I have. So that is about it really, if you have questions for me, just ask! I don't bite! Lilith

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