OK, my beloved followers, all three of you. I apologize for leaving you without my rantings for over two weeks now. I’m sure you were calling your ISPs(Internet Service Providers) to make sure that you weren’t getting faulty service. But, not to fret, for I am back. OK, so that was over dramatic, but so much fun to fantasize. So, seriously here we go.
I have a goal set for myself to start watching more movies. As I’ve stated before, I lost sight of my partaking in movies and I want to get back to one of my favorite activities. I have a mental list of movies that I need to make sure to watch. And one such movie was The Stepfather. Upon seeing the previews, I joked that I didn’t want to see it because it looked WAY to Disturbia-ish to me. I’ve noticed more and more lately, a sign of getting older, that more frequently I see movies being remade over and over. Like if someone saw a movie, and said to themselves, “What if we take that movie, change _______ and ______? We could make a fortune.” And it comes to pass. That is exactly what I thought of The Stepfather. They took Disturbia and said, “Let’s pretend that the mom DID hook up with the crazy neighbor. Let’s show what family life would’ve been like.” Was I right or wrong? Let’s find out.
The bad. This movie was in fact that. It was someone’s idea of what would’ve happened if Disturbia took that road I mentioned. I mean down to the angsty teenager that’s a bit of a rebel. The hottie girlfriend. Psycho killer. Oblivious mom. All Stepfather needed to do was to kill the dad rather than have him divorc….. OH WAIT, they DO kill him. Which leads me to another problem I had with this movie. This psycho kills everyone. If someone looked at this guy wrong, he just kills them. Dog pees in his yard, dead. Mailman drops off the wrong letter, dead. Wrong order at the drive-thru window, dead. I mean this guy kills his left foot for falling asleep on him. OK… bad joke, but you get the point. I even told my wife at one point that if he killed a certain character, I was going to be REALLY upset. Not so much cause I liked the character, but because like I told my wife also, the movie leaves NOTHING to feel good about. I believe there are two kinds of movies. The movies that no matter how bad things get, there’s that light at the end of the tunnel and you walk away feeling OK, because it had a pretty happy ending. Then there are those that are just hard movies, that leave you with a sense of dread. No happy ending. Perfect examples: Disturbia. Psycho killer, kills a few people, but in the end he gets his due, the hero gets the girl and life looks like it will get better. Then there’s Se7en. Psycho killer kills some people, turns himself in, but still manages to get the best of the cops and although he dies, HE is still the ultimate winner. No REAL happy ending. The Stepfather seems to want to do both. So many people died and he basically gets away with it all.
The Good. I will admit that it had me watching intensely. Although mostly to see who else they were gonna kill. And how crazy this guy really was. But mostly it just reminded me why I liked Disturbia so much and I am going to get Disturbia to watch again soon. So that’s a plus, I guess.
In the end, if you want to see a suburban psycho killer movie, watch Disturbia. The Stepfather was not the worst movie in the world, but there are plenty of other movies to please your craving. According to MY rating system, 2 stars means watch only if forced by a date or on a dare. 3 stars is worth watching, but wait for the DVD. At best, I give this movie 2 & 1/2 out of 5 stars only because if there’s nothing else at your local Redbox or Blockbuster, I wouldn’t blame you for picking it up just to scratch it off your list. Just don’t plan your night around this ONE movie. Get a couple of movies and watch this one first, so you can get it out of the way and end on a high note.
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AC
