The Stepfather, From Shout To Scream

1987's The Stepfather is a taught little horror thriller that stands out just by virtue of being a little better in every department. It's got above average writing, thanks largely to a terrific idea taken from a shocking, true life story. There's this very traditional, middle-class, high family values kind of guy who seems completely innocuous and friendly. He's got a beautiful wife, nice kid; and everything's great as long as things are going his way. But if anything starts to go wrong, he'll murder his whole household rather than face their failure to live up to his idealistic fantasy of the perfect American family. And just like his real-life counterpart, instead of spending the rest of his life in jail, the titular stepfather simply changes his identity and moves in with a new family to try again. A family who has no idea that they'd better try their best live up to his fragile expectations, because their lives are on the line.

Update 2/12/16 - 9/12/24: Well, The Stepfather is no longer pre-Scream Factory, and it's also freshly restored in 4k, on UHD, with all new special features as a Collector's Edition.  And it's about time!

More than just the writing, though, it's an effective, well-directed little film with a subtly haunting score and most notably a defining role played by Terry O'Quinn. He delivers one of cinema's all-time memorable performances, as he turns from charming to chilling on a dime, to the point where it's taken him decades to go from being known simply as the stepfather to "that guy from Lost." He's crafted the perfect image of the very last guy you'd ever want to marry your mom and take over your home.

Not that the film's flawless. The plot flops around a bit in the middle, introducing and eventually just getting rid of a whole other lead character. A surviving member of a prior family is plodding along on the stepfather's trail while bickering with the local police, and it just never gets interesting or has any influence on the main characters. Really, everybody who gets between the audience and the main nuclear family, which is where all the drama is, just feel like they're padding the running time. But hey, you can't begrudge a horror film too much for tossing in a couple extra murders, and every time the camera focuses back on the leads, the film's back to firing on all cylinders again.

There's another potential issue that hangs over any issue of this film: is it uncut? The Stepfather's IMDB board is full of people looking for a television version with alternate scenes. And having grown up with a copy of this film taped off of cable TV, those scenes sound familiar to me, too. I'm pretty sure they're right.  They confirm it in the director's commentary, too, so we know Shout's aware of it.  But they're not included on any commercial release to date, either as part of the feature film or deleted scenes. Knowing Shout, I'm sure they tried.  So it's a nice dream, but unfortunately the standard R-rated cut is the only version on the table.

For the longest time, The Stepfather was conspicuously MIA on DVD, at least here in the US. There were a couple of generic, fullscreen VHS-sourced releases overseas. And in the mid-2000s, an alluring German DVD became the disc to try and import. It was anamorphic widescreen, and a must-have for US fans who didn't even have a domestic barebones disc. But finally, the 2009 Stepfather remake made the studio realize, hey, we don't even have the original out there. And so, there was no Scream Factory back then, but the parent label Shout Factory had dipped their toes slightly into the horror genre with their line of Roger Corman cult films and Miike's Audition. So they got this high profile title and made what is essentially the first Scream Factory Collector's Edition before there were Scream Factory Collector's Editions. At first this was a DVD-only title, released on its own in late 2009. But then they came back and issued a blu-ray version in 2010. And now, it's a full-blown, UHD/ BD 2-disc combopack Collector's Edition under the Scream Factory brand.

1) 2009 Shout DVD; 2) 2010 Shout BD; 3) 2024 Scream BD; 4) 2024 Scream UHD.

Both Shouts are full 16x9 widescreen at 1.78:1. The DVD has a very slight single letterbox bar going across the top that's lifted on the blu, giving the blu a very slim extra bit of image. Otherwise, these look very similar and are obviously struck from the same master. So naturally, the difference isn't terribly overwhelming, and that's less a compliment to the DVD than it is a mark against the blu. It's not bad, just kind of soft and light on detail. The grain looks kind of uneven and random on the blu; whereas it's almost entirely smoothed away on the DVD. So for sure the blu is better, with a clearer, slightly more distinct image.

But now we have a fancy, new 4k restoration for the modern era.  And it's not that the original footage has a vast wealth of detail hidden away that Shout had neglected to tap into, and they hadn't borked the color timing or added unwelcome edge enhancement or other tinkering, but things are still better all around.  For one thing, the image is now more properly framed at 1.85:1, and that's actually unveiling a little more along the sides rather than just matting the top and bottom.  Even just comparing the two 1080p blus, grain is much more thorough, edges are sharper, and colors are a little more muted (Terry's apron, for example, is noticeably darker in the newer shots).  It's almost like the initial step from DVD to BD repeated.  It's not a massive change, but it's another clear move ahead.  And then of course on the UHD, colors are richer and more vibrant, sort of restoring the stronger colors of the Shout BD, but now in a more natural, realistic palette... though it's all very subtle across each version. In a few key scenes, the colors really are more attractive in HDR, though.

All four discs have fairly basic but solid 2.0 stereo tracks with the initial blu presenting it in lossless LPCM, and the Screams in DTS-HD.  It's worth noting that neither Shout Factory release included subtitles, but the new Scream set does.

Extras-wise, it was a pretty unexciting double-dip from DVD to BD, but at least there was a difference. Most of the extras were the same. You have a pretty solid audio commentary with director Joseph Ruben, who's thankfully got Fangoria's Mike Gingold enthusiastically prompting him along. Even more engaging, I found, was the almost half-hour documentary The Stepfather Chronicles, which is a great portender for the excellent featurettes we'd find on Scream Factory's releases. It's made by Red Shirt Pictures and is very slickly edited, talking to almost all the key players, from writer Brian Garfield to fan favorite Jill Schoelen. The only one we really miss Terry O'Quinn, who apparently doesn't like to talk about this film? That's a shame, and so that's about it for the DVD. The only other features are the theatrical trailer and a fold-out insert with notes by Cliff MacMillan.

The Shout blu keeps the commentary, doc and trailer, but loses the insert. Instead, they added a couple additional trailers including a German one, a video store promo, and trailers for both of the sequels. A slight improvement, but nothing to break out the checkbook for.

And now we have the new Scream Factory set, which ostensibly adds a lot, but really not a lot of value.  All the old extras are here except, curiously, for the German trailer and the video store promo.  No great loss, but still an odd decision.  Instead, we get three, count 'em three, new audio commentaries, in addition to the original.  The first is with Jill Schoelen, which is fun.  She's a good sport and enthusiastic about the film, but unfortunately she's forgotten a lot and was never part of a lot of the big decisions in the first place.  So when she's asked how the writers were brought together, or what was in those deleted scenes, she doesn't know.  And the moderator isn't a great help.  He certainly has a challenge, which I appreciate.  Jill says she never watched the sequels, and he says, well there goes several of my questions.  But unfortunately, his solution is to just keep offering his opinions on everything.  Want to know if he liked Anthony Hopkins or Brian Cox as Hannibal Lector?  You'll find out!  It's like, if you're not asking Jill a question or prompting her to share something, stop pontificating.  Who even are you?

And that's a perfect set-up for the next two commentaries,  both of which are by, I guess, experts (the back of the case smartly doesn't designate them as anything).  And they both just constantly describe what's clearly happening on the screen: "she's now completely suspicious of him and seeking answers, and newspaper articles, so he's on the cusp of getting found out, which is driving up the tension, which we see because he's not handling it well."  Yeah, obviously, we're seeing the movie, too.  They're like audio descriptive tracks for the blind, not audio commentaries.  But I still prefer those parts to all the "I love that line," "I love this shot," "oh, this is perfect"s.  These three people spend hours giving us their opinions (and surprise, surprise, they all love the movie - we already knew their opinions before we started).  Why do they think we'd care?  It's one thing if the director tells us he never really cared for a certain detail, or has a surprising favorite scene.  But when Schoelen and Shelley Hack are having the leaf fight, we get some random soliloquizing, "how fun is that?  I don't know about you guys, but every Fall that is an activity that I would get into, is just crashing around, making a bigger mess with the leaves I had just raked.  But it's worth it, you know?  These are the kinds of things, seasonal activities, you have to do."  What?  I can't imagine why Scream Factory thinks we want to hear these people keep telling us about themselves.  But I'm sure the ideal is just that it looks like a big deal when they list three new audio commentaries in their specs.

Besides the commentaries, we get a new on-camera interview with Schoelen, which is nice, but between the audio commentary and her participation in the documentary, you know.  Do we really want to hear all her anecdotes in triplicate?  To be fair, she doesn't say all the same things in all three, but still, a lot is repeated.  The only other new stuff is a stills gallery and a slipcover.

No matter what, the new Scream Factory is the definitive release.  The best transfer, finally in 1.85:1, finally with subtitles for those who need 'em.  This is the way to go.  It's too bad the new extras didn't add much value; but just taking this release on its own, it looks and sounds terrific, and the older extras are still here, and they're pretty great.  I mean, part of the problem Scream had this time, is that apart from roping in O'Quinn or unearthing those deleted scenes, their package didn't really need much else.  They weren't lacking for features from the start; they just had to look like they were giving us more.  So highly recommended, just know that you don't have to waste your time sitting through all four commentaries.  Read a book or play a video game instead.