The Stepfather Series Is Corny Slasher Perfection
The Stepfather series is the little slasher trilogy that could. We will ignore the early aughts remake because it is an affront against all pleasant things in life, but otherwise this is a set of films marked by profoundly silly excellence. Jerry Blake is consumed by an obsession with becoming the ideal patriarch of a Rockwellian nuclear family. However, he's also compelled to murder the people who stand in his way or challenge his antiquated worldview. The body count amassed ultimately creates a barrier to stable familial happiness, which in turn traps Jerry in a cycle of inevitable unhappiness. He's sort of like Wile. E. Coyote, but with more penetrating stab wounds.
The Stepfather was loosely based off murders committed by John List. An early seventies family annihilator from New Jersey (Represent), List confessed he was driven to his crimes due to financial strains and his wife's decline (Syphilis, alcoholism, making fun of his sexual prowess-A trifecta of fun times). There's a religious element involved (Of course) as List believed killing his children would solidify their places in heaven rather than allowing them to live a life of alienating poverty. The star atop this Christmas tree of violence is Terry O'Quinn, playing our titular step-pappy. Quinn is magnetic as Jerry, fusing proto-Patrick Bateman faux sociability with equal parts Norman Bates and Mark Brady. The film climaxes in a bloodbath with our murderous patriarch stabbed in the heart, but rest assured, this car still has miles before the fireworks factory
Oh Stepfather II how I love you, let me count the ways. I love that the subtitle for the sequel is Make Room For Daddy, an element that has only grown funnier with age. I love the lenticular knife graphic on the VHS cover that uses the iconic poster art, an image of Jerry hefting the blade over a wedding cake topped with figurines of his newest familial obsession. The depiction of The Stepfather's snarling visage has always evoked an angry MacGruber for me (Terry O'Quinn bears a striking resemblance to Will Forte, and I will only accept another sequel with Forte as Jerry). I especially love that the movie is acutely aware of how dead our antagonist was at the end of the last movie, dancing giddily on the grave of that logical conclusion to bring us more wacky murders. In that way I liken the sequel to Child's Play 2, a bombastic and sillier follow up that knows the folly of attempting to replicate the same experience. If you aren't sold the second Jerry stabs his overly-trusting psychiatrist with a shiv hidden in a diorama figurine of himself, then you are beyond joy. Did I mention that we also get Caroline Williams, Meg Foster and Jonathan Brandis- Is this a night sky free of air pollution of are the stars out TONIGHT?!
Like many, I assumed that removing Quinn from the series would be its death knell, but I was pleasantly surprised. Somehow surviving a claw hammer to the chest, Jerry opts for dockside plastic surgery to escape detection. The bandages come off to reveal the amicably dopey face of Robert Wrightman, a perfect fit for (Step) father of the year. Stepfather III was a made for TV release, and has a comforting corniness as a result. It knows that at this point the conceit is beyond ludicrous (Director Guy Magar knew there was no way to explain Jerry being alive, so he just ignored the plot inconvenience of... Death). It also ensures series finality with the use of the well worn trope known as Chekov's woodchipper.
There's currently no shortage of fictional Spirit Halloween clowns who love female vivisection, or grief-ridden sociopaths who talk like sentient Xanax. That's all fine and good (It isn't), but I long for the time when someone could really jam out some slasher jazz starting with a simple concept. Vengeful cop, murderous shit boy, brain-traumatized stepfather. No one has their characters make figurines of themselves that double as shivs any more. It makes me feel like the Native American guy in the littering commercial.
-Dr. Benny Graves
