The old Stepfather; Terry O'Quinn, in 2008.

The DVD-cover should have been adequate warning. I normally think there are saving graces involved in all films. This film is one of the inglorious exceptions. I thought Charlie Clouser's music might have done something. No. I thought that maybe, just maybe, this remake could have a few jokes - being a thriller/mystery film - in common with the original. But no. Nothing. Zilch. Not even a laugh (where the director intended them to arrive, I hope), a scare or anything even slightly interesting. The only scary thing about this sordid gripe was how I was able to retain my calm without vomiting. Scary.

But what is it about? Dylan Walsh plays The Stepfather, a man who joins a family and kills the members off after a while. He moves away, races into the next like a parasite and restarts the cycle, and that's the synopsis, except this time things are supposedly different. A special family. Maybe. I don't really know. This film lost me completely for a number of reasons.

Let me count the ways: the anti-feminist way Nelson McCormick, the director, deemed it necessary to display The Older Son's girlfriend in bikini in a number of poses, in and out of water; and how many bikinii does she own, really? How badly does The Older Son act, and what the hell happened to The Sister? And why is The Younger Son named Sean? Is it to piss us lovers of The Old Nip/Tuck off more than the current season does? And Jessalyn Gilsig, what the FUCK? And has a song ever been more inappropriately used in a film than Band of Horses' "The Funeral", than here? Holy shit. Which idiot compiled the soundtrack? Why did Clouser let his friends from Filter embarrass themselves by including a bad cover? How did this film turn as one-dimensional and cold as it did? Did anybody involved in the making of this film care in the least about it?

I could go on, and I will. If this film were a child, Social Services would have taken custody years ago, and sentenced the child's lineage to Death Row. I generally jump at any half-scary gimmick in a horror flick, such as a cat suddenly leaping onto the screen, The Killer's silhouette popping up behind The Hero or hearing Keanu Reeves say "oh" but none of that magic ensued here. While the original film happened in the 1980s, this pap is probably supposed to be happening today; so why does everybody act as though Internet doesn't exist in order to check Stepdad's identity? But no.

This is such a one-trick pony that it makes Terry O'Quinn's utterly over-the-top acting in the original flick extremely compelling, beyond the extreme simplicity of that film, which by the way made me jump of fear and become intrigued, and even snarl at the simple jokes The Stepfather made from time to time. This film, on the other hand, is just a simple shitfest designed to make money off youths, offering no cigar. This is advocacy for piracy. I would have cut my face severely using left-over popcorn from the floor if I'd caught this off the silver screen. Don't see it. Save your 1,5 hours. Save the electrons. Or defy me, see it while drunk, and don't blame me if you can't get sleep because the one-word question that will be haunting you for days is "Why?".