The Movie: The Stepfather (1987)
What Is It?:
Smack dab in the decade dominated by disposable slasher movies came a
nut-with-a-knife flick that reached back to the psychologically complex films
that inspired the genre. The Stepfather
has far more in common with Psycho, Peeping Tom, and Repulsion, than Friday the
13th or Prom Night, and its
quality has earned it a cult following that really deserves to be broader.
Based on a true story, The Stepfather
stars Terry O’Quinn as a deranged chameleon constantly on the look out for a
new family to fulfill his perfect-Daddy fantasies. At its core, The Stepfather is a satire of
conservative American ideals of the flag-waving, sweater-vest-and-pearls
wearing nuclear family (the script was written during the Nixon era and filmed
during Reagan’s reign), but it’s never jokey or goofy.
Why Today?: Today
is Step Family Day.
