ClassyWas Excellent, smart action film.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

nadinesalakovv Synopsis: A young man returns home from military school and finds his mother getting remarried to a new man, the young man suspects that there is something not right about this new man.Review: This is a watchable thriller remake. Great performances, and there is also some unique great camerawork here from time to time. The majority of this movie is a straight up thriller, there are a few elements of creepiness, example the scene where the stepfather murders the old lady (that scene was cold due to there being no film score at all for that scene) and frankly that scene was unwatchable, it is actually a very upsetting scene, i think because the lady was old and couldn't really defend herself or even be able to attempt to.The Stepfather is an unpredictable thriller that is never boring, what more can i say - if you like thrillers watch or re-watch this. I recommend skipping the original because that version is unwatchable, and watch this remake instead.

Platypuschow Of all the films to remake The Stepfather (1987) starring the excellent Terry O'Quinn seems like a really peculiar choice.I personally enjoyed the original and to an extent its two sequels but went into this assuming the worst. I felt like it would miss the point of the original and overly gloss it with Hollywood sparkle.Well, it's somewhere inbetween. The Stepfather is a bigger budget version of essentially the same tale, but simply not done as well. So it looks all pretty pretty but doesn't have the same impact that Terry O'Quinn provided.As a thriller this is passable, just try to forget that its a remake and don't compare it to the superior original.Dylan Walsh is okay in the role and the film also includes a young Amber Heard on the upswing of her career.Watchable stuff, but it simply didn't need making.The Good: Surprisingly excellent soundtrack Passable performances The Bad: The whole thing feels so unnecessary Not as good as the originalThings I Learnt From This Movie: We shouldn't live in a world where we need to background check potential partners, but we probably should

georgeritmeester I never saw the original, but my summary is based on other reviews found here. Reasonably entertaining, but too unrealistic because:1) The mother is of normal or superior intelligence except when it's time to add two and two. Her neighbor tells her the guy looks like someone on America's Most Wanted, and she doesn't even check it out when it only takes a few clicks of the mouse.1a) Even when the neighbor dies shortly after advising her of the above, the mother still suspects nothing. 1b) Even when she learns the guy quit the job with his sister as soon as she wanted his social security number and other info, she's still not suspicious.1c) In real life, the mother would kick the guy out of the house and tell him to get lost after finding out what he did to her younger son. Instead, she treats it like a minor incident hardly worth mentioning.2) Same problem with girlfriend. Smart enough to go to college but, aside from all the other suspicions the son relayed to her, when he explains how the guy could not have known the neighbor fell down the stairs and broke her neck, because all the mailman told him was that the neighbor had an accident, she just blows it off instead of considering that suspicious. 3) How did the guy get into the mother's email? He may be living with her but it seems unlikely she would have volunteered the password to her email.4) Nobody in real life could still function normally after being stabbed in the neck with a large piece of glass.5) Even though his suspicions continued to increase as time went by, the son never once goes to the police, when all he would have had to do is ask them to check out if the guy was the one on America's Most Wanted. 6) The concluding scene is a plot device that was apparently popularized by Silence of the Lambs. But here it makes no sense. The guy would be dead or in jail awaiting trial, not free to move to another town and assume yet another anonymous identity.7) I'm not sure anything here is actually a spoiler alert. 8) Modernized thrillers usually make the story more believable. If that was the intent here, it failed miserably. Perhaps the most egregious scene is the one where the sister is about to head for the airport when she discovers the wind blew a table umbrella into her pool (or was tossed there by the killer). Instead of just leaving it in the pool until she returns from her trip, she wastes precious time trying to retrieve the umbrella from the pool while a lightning storm is in progress - more important than making sure she doesn't miss her flight or get electrocuted, I guess. But this idiocy had to be introduced to have a plausible scenario for the guy to be able to murder her quickly without any witnesses. A close second is the fact the killer doesn't turn off the ringer on the murdered ex-husband's cellphone, which he has to keep using to send and receive text messages making it appear the son's father is still alive and still communicating. And a close third is the fact that the mother allows the new guy to keep the basement door locked when it's her house - not his.9) That being said, reasonably entertaining when you're in the mood to just flake out and take a vacation from your mind. But if you're chomping at the bit to watch a great movie, better save this one for another time.

Davis P The stepfather is just a bad movie. I mean that's basically the majority of my review haha, it is a poorly written, poorly acted, and poorly filmed movie that does nothing to thrill, excite, and interest the audience at all. I have not seen the 1980s movie that this one remakes, but I'm sure it's better than this mess. The only thing I really liked about this film was Penn Badgley, and his many shirtless scenes haha. Penn wasn't horrible in his character, he just wasn't that great either. He was good eye candy though, especially since the rest of the movie was crap. Dylan Walsh was just so so, nothing special, and I personally didn't think he was nearly creepy or threatening enough. The dialogue is just a bunch of recycled extremely clichéd lines thrown together. The action scenes are not that thrilling or scary. 2/10, would've had a 1 without Penn Badgley lol.