This is a review for the 2009 movie The Stepfather, which is a remake of the 1987 thriller which starred Terry O'Quin (best known as John Locke the tv show LOST). The movie is about a guy who is obsessed with having the perfect family, so he marries single moms with kids, but of course no family is perfect and when things start to fall apart he kills everyone and moves away, taking on a new identity and trying to start over. It's a neat idea (kind of the modern family version of the classic Bluebeard story) and the 1987 version is a classic. The 2009 version isn't. It isn't that it's a bad movie, it's just kind of generic and lame. All the things that made that original version so cool feel gutted here, like they just didn't want to bother with them. Then instead of replacing them with something else cool, they just put in...well, nothing. That said, let's compare the two along with a third version of a similar story, the episode "Ted" of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
THE STEPFATHER (1987) -- the original -- What made this movie so cool? First, you have Terry O'Quinn playing the stepfather role, a fantastic actor who took a long time in getting his fair recognition.
(Terry O'Quinn, Jill Schoelen, and Shelley Hack)
Then you had the idea itself -- this twisted use of the idea of a perfect family. Now back in the 80's the idea of a perfect family still was a real thing, something people were talking about and striving for. The nuclear family. The well behaved kids, etc. These were the Regan years, before Oprah let everyone know that we all problems, etc, etc. So the idea of a man trying to have a perfect family and having that deisre twist him into a serial killer was pretty cool, and really said something about the world (namely that all the talk of the perfect family was bull, families aren't perfect and trying for the perfect family will make you insane). Third is the family. In the original the Stepfather marries a single mom with a teenage daughter. The mom and daughter originally are very close, but of course adding a new husband changes that and we watch this very real dynamic play out knowing the stepfather is really a psycho, so the escalating friction carries a much more powerful thrill then in a regular drama. The fact that it is a mother and daughter works very well too, letting us see quickly the close bond they have and of course bringing a gender element in by introducing a man. Watching the movie, it really is almost the perfect, simple thriller as we watch it play out -- him marrying into this family, for a while everything becomes good, then as it falls apart -- both this perfect family and the Stepfather's assumed identity, pushing him to become more and more unstable -- we know it is building to the final, violent conclusion. It's one of those rare cases where everything works. Great a great, solid little thriller.
"TED," episode 2X11 of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER -- now here we have a bit of a twist. Similar to the Stepfather, the Stpefather character (this time "Ted" played wonderfully by the late John Ritter) wooing his way into a family of a mom and teenage daughter, this time Buffy's mom and Buffy.
(Ted and Joyce, Buffy's mom)
Of course, Buffy doesn't like him, everyone else thinks he's wonderful, normal problem, he wants everything perfect, etc, etc...except now when he attacks her, well, she's Buffy so she kills him. This is a strange turn in the Buffyverse. It's (I believe) the first time a slayer is shown killing a human and for both killing a human and the pain it causes her mom, Buffy is racked with guilt. But the story's just warming up, when in a strange turn Ted comes back from the dead. Now, in the Buffyverse you'd assume vampire or zombie, but no it's something else entirely and now Buffy has to defeat him again, this time winning back all the people who had begun to doubt her. So again, we have a very similar story, but with her killing him, guilt, then his coming back all effectively twisting it to fit the Buffyverse. Plus, again watching John Ritter was always fun (though a little sad now that he's dead.)
THE STPEFATHER (2009) -- now back to the remake. Again this was an okay movie, but kind of lame. Why did the two previous versions work where this one didn't? Well, first there are two changes make from the original that could have been okay, but ended up hurting the film. First, the change the main character from a daughter to a son and second, instead of making him an only child he has two siblings, a younger bother and sister. Again, the changes might have been fine but they hurt the film for a couple reasons -- one, the relationship between mother and daughter is different than mother and son. So when the stpefather comes into play, there isn't that effect of him driving them apart, which takes away a wonderful element of the original movie. In the remake, instead they try to go in teh opposite direction -- the son has been at military school and so things are awkward between mother and son. But so what? So when he begins suspecting that the stepfather isn't the good guy people think, it does what? Well, basically nothing. In fact, it seems to cause more friction between the guy and his girlfriend then between the sona nd his mother. In fact, this version really doesn't have much of a relationship between mother and son at all. There are probably more scenes with the son and his biological father then with the mom. Now that could be fine if they did something with it, if they were changing the dynamic to show....I have no idea. They just feel like changes for the sake of changes, to be honest. And like I said in this version he has siblings too, although I don't know why. They don't really do anything and aren't involved in the climax really. In fact, it's weird the way they seemed to disappear (I guess I missed something?) halfway throught he movie. In the original, having her be an only child worked to help isolate her -- she was suspicious and no one else believed her. In this version lots of people seem to suspect the guy, starting with his younger brother and his bio-dad. He's pretty late to the party. So again, a good element of the original that's lacking and instead we get...well, again nothing. All the changes seem to difuse the story instead of making it stronger. So when the stepfather gets violent for the first time with a child, instead of it being the main character, it's the younger brother. Instead of the son and mom getting into a fight about the stepfather's act of violence, it's the ex-husband. All of which pushes the story away from the main character. It might work if it affected the story somehow (like if the son were trying to get the parents back together) but it really doesn't. A lot of it could be removed completely. It's become so diffuse it doesn't even feel necessary. Which is the problem with the remake. Instead of Terry O'Quinn you have Dyan Walsh (a huge step down, talk about bland!) and then the gutting of the tensions of that central mom-child relationship and even the intervention of the stepfather doesn't really do anything to the family dynamic since the son had been at military school.
So after two wonderful examples of this concept at work, you have a third where they try to do something different -- change from a daughter to a son, make it a larger family wit younger siblings, include the ex-husband in the story...and yet none of the changes work because all they do is dilute the dramatic tensions of the original while never replacing them with anything fresh. It's unfortunate that in a time of so many remakes people seem to be paying less and less attention to why these movies worked in the first place. First, they usually were a product of their times so they relfected something of the world around them (yes, even horror films!) and second there usually was more to the dramatics of the story than just guy-goes-psycho-kills-family. Now, I'm not a purist who thinks you have to keep everything the same. But if you are going to make changes, they should be because you want to explore something different then in the original, not changes just to make it different.
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