Michael Harding (“Gossip Girl” heartthrob Penn Badgley) returns home from a year at military school to discover his mother Susan (Sela Ward) is engaged to be married to mysterious stranger David Harris (Dylan Walsh) whose good looks and caring nature might just be a façade concealing a homicidal streak putting his entire family in danger.

CRITIQUE

Nelson McCormick’s remake of the 1987 underground horror classic The Stepfather did not screen for press upon its original release last year. After watching it I can’t really see why Screen Gems felt the need to conceal it from us. While not a good movie, per se, it certainly isn’t a horrible one (unlike the director’s previous remake Prom Night), and while I’m not going to recommend anyone see it that doesn’t mean I hold any vitriol against the filmmakers for making it.

In fact, for those who haven’t seen Joseph Ruben’s splendid original (featuring a wonderful screenplay by, of all people, Donald E. Westlake) this remake might even prove to be a thing they might enjoy. McCormick stages things relatively effectively, never overplaying his hand and using restraint to earn his (few) scares instead of bludgeoning viewers over the head. While Walsh will never make anyone forget the great Terry O’Quinn (who is so incredible in that 1987 feature I wish someone would give him a retroactive Oscar) he does a pretty good job of making Harris both scary and somewhat pitiable. All-in-all this remake comes fairly close to getting the job done, and for genre fans used to a string of forgettable thrillers this is one that if it were on Cable television right now and a person were indifferently channel surfing this could be the movie to get them to stop.

Now, for the rest of us, this version of The Stepfather can’t hold a candle to Ruben’s version. From the opening sequence on the differences in tone and style between one to the other are like night and day. Additionally, changing the sex of the hero wasn’t a particularly good idea, and while Badgley is a hugely appealing and charismatic young actor I never for one second believed he was ever in danger of being stabbed to death by his psychotic stepfather. The kid just came home from military school for gosh sakes, that fact alone making me wonder quite a few times why he doesn’t just use some of the skills he would have learned there to put his strange new nemesis into his proper place once he learns just how far off the deep end the man has fallen.

All that being true I never felt bad about sitting through McCormick’s take on the story. The 102-minute running time seemed to fly by, the cast is much better than you’d usually expect for a throwaway B-movie like this one and there are a couple of decent scares I can’t admit to anticipating. While things fall apart completely in the final moments (of course setting up a sequel we’ll hopefully never see) up until that point I sort of enjoyed sitting through the thing, and if someone I knew wanted to watch it I’m not entirely sure I’d not join them on the couch and view it a second time myself.

THE VIDEO

The Stepfather is presented in 2.40:1/1080p widescreen. A solid transfer, Sony’s handling of this Blu-ray I pretty much par for the course.

THE AUDIO

Available audio includes English, French 5.1, Portuguese 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital with optional English SDH, English, French, Portuguese and Spanish subtitles.

THE EXTRAS

Commentary with Penn Badgley, Dylan Walsh and director Nelson McCormick: One of those commentary tracks where the people delivering it are far fonder of the film you’re viewing than you are. Not a bad listen, but not one I’d go back to and every listen to again, either.

Gag Reel: Average collection of mistakes, flubs and supposed hilarity that’s not near as funny as the people who assembled it probably think it is.

2 Featurettes: Open House: Making the Film and Visualizing the Stunts:  Typical EPK style shorts that are about what you’d expect and nothing you’d ever want to watch again.

The disc is also BD-Live enabled, and features Sony's movie IQ pop-up trivia track.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This new version of The Stepfather isn’t near as great as the 1987 original, but it’s still solid enough genre fans might be compelled to give it a shot as a rental.