Papa's Dei: Stepfather III

When in doubt, insult your audience.  Today's film is a special film- Stepfather III.  It's not good.  It's not all that interesting.  No, what makes it memorable is the re-casting of the film's lead.  Terry O'Quinn must have said 'no,' I guess.  This TV movie features nobody of note and the whole thing just feels unnecessary.  In other words, it's Omen IV: The Awakening.  It's not quite that bad, but my point remains valid.  The plot takes some silly turns, but is otherwise a rehash of the original films.  No new twists, movie?  You couldn't have had a mysterious man appear to be the villain, but it turns out to be someone else?  You couldn't have had the new wife turn out to be crazy?  You couldn't have had the kid turn out to be evil?  Anything?  Okay, with no effort on your part, let's dig right into this nearly-forgotten mess...

To see my review of the second film, go here.

Much like The Food of the Gods, the titles give you an ominous warning of things to come...

In day-for-night view, our title character has reconstructive surgery done.  Translation: new actor.  Oh and he kills the guy in a bloody manner, setting himself up for later defeat.

 Bonus points for skipping over the whole 'escaping the prison' scene and just saying it happened.  Super lazy!

In California, the killer takes on a new identity and tries to romance a woman by way of her son.  How can you date a movie just by the clothes?  This film is how!

You know how this goes, right?  He romances the lady, acts randomly crazy and life goes on.  Anything new, movie?

Well, the new Stepson tries to figure out the truth by using his fancy com-puter and scan-ner.  That's new.  It's silly, but it's new.

Oh yeah, watch for a cameo by Scrubs/Cougar Town star Christa Miller too.

The twist in this movie is that the villain finds out that his new wife can't have kids.  Conveniently enough, a new woman shows up in town and he rents his old place to them...and begins to screw her.

What's worse- cheating on the wife or just assuming that she wants him to move in, as opposed to vice-versa?

To wrap things up, more people die- including a Preacher and the Stepfather's boss- before he turns on both women in his life.  The kid musters up the will to walk- he could do it, but mentally couldn't- and manages to knock the villain into a giant woodchipper.

Okay, so now is he definitely dead?  The End.

Are we done now?  No offense, but this movie was even more pointless than the second film.  That one had some good moments to it, but was a sequel that didn't push the narrative further.  The character didn't evolve at all & nothing was changed.  That said, I didn't expect much from the first sequel to any horror film.  I'd prefer to get something new, but I'm not surprised by the stagnancy there.  This film has no excuse.  They begin by changing things up- even if it was to just avoid jeers-, but do nothing to follow it up with.  I guess the inclusion of a second woman is a twist, but it never really goes anywhere.  It just serves to make the wife wary of him- the same thing that his comments and whistling did in the second film.  Furthermore, this film's casting is dull and listless.  The only thing notable about the new Stepfather is his eerie voice resemblance to Jeffrey Combs.  It helps if you try to just listen to the film and something more notable is happening.  The biggest problem, however, is the run-time.  At nearly two hours, this film drags.  The extra time is not used to make characters more interesting.  It just serves to add more pointless scenes or drag out other ones.  If you're going to watch a Stepfather film, watch the original.  Save for the casting, the sequel can be skipped.  This film can just be skipped entirely.  Take us away, totally not-creepy moment...

Next up, I continue to work my way through the Midnight Horror Collection, Volume 2.  I hope you find hiking to be scary!  Stay tuned...