 Hello and welcome to another edition of Frightfully Forgotten Horror Movies and today we're going to do a double feature! The Stepfather series, so one in two in one review. And fuck the third one. Yeah. But before we get started, what are we drinking? We're drinking O'Grady's Four Leaf Clover Stout. From the Clover Patch. The Stepfather was directed by Joseph Rubin and he did the Dreamscape and also The Good Son. It stars Terry O'Quinn and well, a lot of people know him from the TV show Lost as John Locke. But he's also in another great, great, great Canadian horror flick which we've covered a long time ago called PIN! Jill Sholin's in this. She was in Wes Craven's Chiller which they always see on VHS at these flea markets, this shitty version. It's got like no tape in it. We just pass it up. She was in the 89 version of Phantom of the Opera with Robert England. She was also in the horror movie Popcorn and When a Stranger Calls Back. Stepfather starts off this man, right? You don't quite know who he is at first. This man taking a disguise off in the mirrors in the bathroom putting on something else, something different. And while he's doing that, he's whistling a tune called Camp Down Races. Which is a thread through both movies, which is neat. He walks downstairs whistling this tune and it pans through the living room of this house and it's turned completely upside down and the family's been completely slaughtered. So he then takes the ferry and he throws his suitcase into the water and it sinks. He leaves his old life behind and he goes to assume a new life. And he gets involved with another woman in another city and she has a daughter who tries to assume the role of the dad and he tries to take her under his wing, a backyard barbecue and everything and he puts on like this big speech and I never really knew family life until I met this one. And all that cheesy shit. But the daughter starts to suspect things because every time he gets upset he goes into that basement and there's this one scene where the daughter's down there for something and he doesn't know she's down there. And then he goes downstairs to flip out to like just cut loose. Totally loses his shit. He's all smashing his workshop all up and she sees him do that and he sees her looking at him and then he just calms right down and kind of the jig is up at that point. So Stephanie the daughter is really rebelling at school because she just doesn't like her home life. She doesn't like the fact that this new man is in the scene and her mother is already remarried so quickly after her father died. She's getting into fights at school and she gets expelled. She's got to see a psychiatrist about all this stuff and she's explaining all this to the psychiatrist and he's like well maybe I should speak to the stepfather. He calls and he won't speak to him. Tell him I'm not here. He's on his workshop again. In the meantime the brother of the wife who was killed before in the old family is still seeking out the murderer. He's out to get the son of a bitch and he's actually getting close. And the stepdaughter is suspicious of him so something's going to come to a boil here. That takes us to stepfather 2. And stepfather 2 is directed by Jeff Burr who directed Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3. He directed Pumpkin Head 2 and Puppet Masters 4 and 5. So he's like the king of the sequels. Yeah those are all pretty good. Terry O'Quinn is in this again and again he was in pin. That doesn't change. Meg Foster's in this and we're not going to mention anything else except best of the best two. Got some snap n'im kicks boy. She was in They Live of course. And she's very notable because of her crazy piercing blue eyes. Yeah beautiful eyes. Jonathan Brannis is in this and he is in It of course and we had done a bit of a retrospective on It. You can click the link above. Originally none of that remake bullshit. No we also shit on that too. If you want to watch that one click the link above on that. And he's in sidekicks. One of the best martial arts movie ever made. Caroline Williams is in this and she's stretching Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and she's also in Leprechaun 3. I wish I was a man so I could just screw myself to the floor. That's tick-line. And then she dies by her lips and ass blowing up. Yeah. Without wrecking how stepfather one ends stepfather two takes place shortly after and the stepfather is in an insane asylum being interviewed by like the new psychiatrist in town here and they kind of start chumming it up. And he's got that sick diorama thing all made. He's building like this diorama to like show how he feels to the psychiatrist destroys it during one session and is like oh no no wait up because I'm trying to rebuild rebuild what's broken to the psychiatrist. Yes yes takes his psychiatrist into his confidence his guard down and then kills him with this like he's got like a model of himself this retractable like blade and fucking sticks it in the back of his head. It's all intricate. Assumes a new identity. He looks in the obituaries for like a deceased name and takes it. Got like the VHS tapes with the virtual dating or what not. Going through all the people. All these crazy stupid women and everything. They're all smoking too. And then he goes and he leases a house from this new development and he starts to hit it up with the realtor who is recently divorced with a young boy. Like perfect for him because he wants the perfect family. So he starts to befriend the mother and the boy he kind of actually takes to him this time right. He kind of does all the right things. He pulls all the right moves. He builds that stupid fucking ramp for his skateboard. If he hit it he'd die. That's all shotty you were. He becomes like the neighborhood psychiatrist for all the women. Only the women. Come on buddy. So he's getting pretty close to the family. The only fucking problem is that the old husband or the old dad wants back into their life. So he tells the mother that he wants to have a chat with the dad right so he can kind of smooth things over a little bit. Try and get the dad back into their lives. Bullshit. So the dad comes over and he's all smoking and he gets all pissed off. Drops the smoke. What's up with the cigarette? Y'all mashes it into his carpet. The stepfather's like well maybe we went about this all wrong. He's like maybe we should back up a little bit. And he takes his ball and he's like I don't mean to crack open this bottle. He just smashes it over his head. Stabs him in the throat with the remainder of the bottle. As he's lying on the carpet he gets a call and he answers. It's the mother. How's things going over there? Well we're just wrapping things up here. One of the women starts to suspect that he's not who he says that he is right. And she starts tampering with his male. Cause she's the male person. She gets a bit of evidence on him that he's claiming to be this person that's in this picture, in this photo. And she confronts him about it. People can change, you know. It's like this much. It's like a photo from his high school basketball team and they're all black guys. It's like an all black team. You can explain that one. Well he can. He doesn't. Black males him with this photo and with the info that she has on him and says well if you don't come clean about who you really are I'm going to tell everyone with this evidence. And that's where we're going to end that. So if you want to see what happens in Stepfather 2 keep watching. So I hope we did a good job of summarizing two movies without giving away the ending of either. Stepfather 1 and 2 are really fun, neat kind of double feature cause they do flow together really well. Like you can watch them back to back. They're seamless. Yeah, yeah. But they do kind of need each other, right? Like when you watch the first one you kind of think like something's a little missing or the pacing's a little off or it needs more of certain things. And then you get all of that in the second one, right? In the second one, right? It's interesting. They're really good companions to each other which is why we're doing this as like a joint review. The first thing we have to mention about these movies is Terrio Quinn. The guy just is like a master at playing this character. Yeah, he's a perfect one man show. Aw man, like he's so good at playing like so nice and perfect and the perfect father and all the stuff. But he's really a fucking maniac. Yeah, and he can take it from 0 to 10 in no time at all which is great. Yeah, so he's great at playing both those, you know, the proper man and then flipping out in the workshop. He's right on the edge like constantly. You get that sense that he can do anything. And he really does make these movies. Like these movies would be nothing without Terrio Quinn. He's fantastic. And he was actually scared of being typecast. And the rest of the supporting characters, right? For both of these movies. So in the first movie, the movie itself and the characters sort of mirror each other, right? So they're a lot more realistic and sensible. They're down to earth. And in the second movie, it plays out a little more comical and a little more bashfully, a little more elevated. A little more campy. Yeah. Stephanie in the first movie being, you know, the stepfather's daughter is more relatable, more down to earth and I think actually a better actor and all this kind of stuff. And you kind of, that's more fleshed out. And in the second movie, Jonathan Brandis, still a good actor. It's a bit more cheesy. Whistling together in the fucking kitchen and everything like. And making that sandwich. Yeah. There's a two man operation here. Yeah. Like it's just all a bit more cheesy. The characters actually reflect movies. So the characters in the first one, more realistic, more relatable. Second movie, more kind of like silly. Fun. And fun. Yeah, campy. And campy, right? And that goes with the atmosphere too. Like the way the movie shot and filmed. Like in the first movie, it feels realistic. This is a real neighborhood. This really exists, you know. You get that feeling like you're there. Yeah. In the neighborhood. Second one is more atmospheric. And you can tell it's lit a certain way to make you feel a certain way. Right, right. I think it's also a little surrealistic. Yeah, it's much more surrealistic in the second one. The atmosphere in both movies reflect its intent. You know, the first movie is more serious. Second one, a little more campy. And you get that. Yeah. With the way it's shot. There's a lot of symbolism in both these movies. Like a lot of symbolism. Like the use of mirrors and stuff. Because he's always looking at himself in the mirror when he's changing his sick disguise. Kind of like when he kept getting kicked out of the bar and then he kept putting these sick disguises on, trying to get in again. I thought they would work. I'll have a dirty monkey, please. I must be daydream believing, get your ass in the next train to Clarksville and get the fuck out of here. What the hell is this? King George and his Technicolor Dream Code? May I have a King's Best Bitter, please? I thought I told you to get the hell out of here. What the fuck is this, Halloween? You can't wear that shit in here. Give me a boiler maker, bitch. Take your burnt ass and take it back to the fucking boiler room. They use the mirrors quite a bit. And the first one, he's always looking in the mirror. Then at the end, he jumps through the mirror. Like he's breaking through that. That disguise. He's now his real self. And the second one, that great shot where he's in the motel and he's looking in the mirror. And the way it's shot is like different reflections of him across the walls. Like all of his cells. Yeah. Which is interesting. I love that. Sick birdhouse that he wants the perfect house. He's always trying to make the perfect house. The bird house he's making and the first one. And then at the end, they chop it down. Like, no, it's not a perfect house. And then the second one, he's making that house again, that diorama house. He's always trying to make the perfect house. Yeah, because he keeps repeating himself. The definition of insanity. Exactly. Being the same thing, trying to get a different result. Both movies, he has the perfect situation. Putting himself into the perfect family. It's him who's not perfect, right? His own psychosis is what fucks it up. Yeah, he fucks up his own situation which just so happens to be perfect. Yeah. Which is exactly what he's looking for. There's great showdowns in both these movies. In the first movie, like, you get a real good build up. They fight throughout the whole house. Yeah. They tear apart the whole house. And in the second one, it takes place in the actual where the wedding is. In the wedding hall, they destroy the whole reception area. The cake and everything. I was all more upset about the cake than anything. He whistles that song in the first movie. And it doesn't amount to anything. But in the second movie, it's his downfall. Whistling that song because it gets him caught. And I love that they take a little simple thing from the first one that doesn't mean anything. It's like they had the second one in mind already. And they weave it into the second one and the whole movie teeters on that. That's the crux, that's his downfall. Another neat thing about this sequel is that it's just as much a prequel in a way because it does take place after the first movie. And it continues that story. But, in the first movie you don't see how he actually weaves his way into these families. And you see that in the second movie. So yeah, it takes place after the first, but you see what he does to get into the situation that he needs to be in. Don't get a backstory on him. You don't know who really is inside or outside. You know nothing about him. Because he's done this so many times he's so removed from his real self you'll never know. No, and then the cops like they make a point in saying it's like it's all dead ends we don't know who this guy is because he's been doing this for so long and you can't backtrack it. Enough, yeah to find out who he really was. That is what makes that character. Like a lot of times backstories are what make the character. And this is what he does moving forward. It's like the lack of the backstory who makes the character in this. Which is a very interesting thing. The stepfather is a great character. He's a great horror slasher I think. Even though he's not really a slasher so much he's just a good horror character. Well this has happened in real life. Traited families pretending to be somebody else. This happened probably millions of times. So the stepfather series one and two work perfectly hand in hand. The first one is a bit more serious. It's more of a suspense thriller and the second one's more of like comedic horror like 80s style kind of slasher in a way. And it's neat because they kind of tell the same story but in a different way. They both expand on the character and like the situations he gets into without expanding on his fucking backstory. Which is so interesting. If you're looking for a good double feature this is a really good double feature sequels that you can watch back to back in one night. You need each other really. You can't watch the one without the other I think. Because like when I watch the first one and yeah it has its pacing issues and I think it could have did with one more kill really to help with the pacing I thought. And then the second one comes along and it redeems all of that and it's like oh yeah it fills the gaps and it's like it leaves you with a far better sense of these movies and it's like yeah you just redeemed yourself. I love both of these movies. So you kind of need to watch them both together to get the whole scope and they would actually like if you were to like take all the fluff out of both movies condense them in the one condense them in the one. It would be just a perfect fucking slasher thriller. Might be a little fan edit that maybe I do one day. That would be a pretty wicked fan edit I think. The condenses down to like a good solid 45 minutes or something. Yeah. Hour 50. There you have it. There's our take on the stepfather movies. And if you have any other ideas or thoughts on these movies let us know in the comments and until next time keep drinking.