REVIEWED BY JONATHAN LEWIS:

   

THE STEPFATHER. Screen Gems / Sony, 2009. Dylan Walsh, Sela Ward, Penn Badgley, Amber Heard, Sherry Stringfield, Paige Turco. Screenplay by J.S. Cardone, based on a earlier screenplay by Donald E. Westlake. Director: Nelson McCormick.

   Let me be upfront. The Stepfather, a tepid remake of the eponymous 1987 cult film about a serial killer who repeatedly invites himself into people’s families, is not a particularly good movie. It’s formulaic, predictable, and easily forgettable. But it has an undeniable shlock charm to it. It may be silly, but it moves at a rapid clip. So much so that the movie’s glaring weaknesses don’t become truly obvious until it’s all over.

   Case in point: there are a few moments in The Stepfather, at least in the first thirty minutes or so, in which the suspense morphs into parody. Indeed, there were a few scenes in which I imagined being in a theater watching the movie and hearing teenagers and twenty-somethings snicker uncontrollably at the proceedings. But for the last hour or so, the movie takes on a more serious – and sinister – tone and these sequences are easily relegated to one’s cinematic memory hole.

   The plot is threadbare. Serial killer and all-around weirdo Grady Edwards/David Harris (Dylan Walsh) has a habit of going from place to place and finding single moms to charm. Soon enough, he’s the new stepfather in town. That is, until the children disappoint his exacting parental standards. Then off he goes on a murderous rampage.

   His latest target is the exceptionally naïve Susan Kerns Harding (Sela Ward) and her two young children. Little does he know that Susan also has a wayward teenage son off at military school who may not be so eager to put up with his nonsense. Enter Michael Harding (Penn Badgley) who turns out to be the one rational actor in the whole affair, especially in comparison to his cloying and annoying girlfriend Kelly Porter (Amber Heard), whose only role in the movie seems to be to cast doubt on Michael’s suspicions that his newfound stepdad is a killer.

   There really aren’t any surprises in the movie. And my summary of the plot doesn’t really give away any spoilers. We know from the first scene in the film that the stepfather is a murderous creep. This takes away the “is he or isn’t he” suspense which could have made this a taut and thrilling movie.

   As it is, The Stepfather is little more than fleetingly mediocre entertainment. Not particularly offensive. But not particularly good, either.