The Stepfather - DVD Review
By Cyril Pearl -- Video Business, 10/5/2009
SHOUT! FACTORY
Street: Oct. 13
Prebook: now
> Effective thriller about a murderous ‘family man’ whose dreams go awry.
This tight little thriller from 1987 follows a nutcase (Terry O’Quinn) who is so obsessed with the “American Dream” of a wife, family and house with a picket fence that he goes murderously over the top when his vision hits a snag. Finally making its stateside digital premiere, The Stepfather is based on a real-life story about a New Jersey-based murderer in the ’70s. It’s one of the better pre-Silence of the Lambs serial killer flicks out there, with only a few dashes of graphic violence, which makes those sequences all the more powerful.
Shelf Talk: A remake of The Stepfather starring Dylan Walsh and Sela Ward is opening theatrically, so push the original in conjunction with the new version. Star O’Quinn’s current popularity on TV’s Lost also is a plus.
Thriller, color, R (mature themes, violence, sexual situations), 89 min., DVD $19.99, UPC: 826663115703
Extras: commentary, retrospective featurette
Director: Joseph Ruben
First Run: L, Jan. 1987, $2.5 mil.
