Great Cyberpath Psycho Killer Movie
Yeah I remember the America's Most Wanted profile on serial murderer John List, the uptight freak who used to mow his lawn wearing a shirt & a tie, and would relax at the end of the day by changing into a different shirt & tie. Eventually murdered his family when he got tired of dealing with the bills, assumed a new identity, took up with a new clan in a new town and more or less disappeared for 20 years standing right there in front of you. One has to wonder how many other times something like that has happened and it's more prevalent than you'd think.The term used these days is CYBERPATH (Google it sometime), usually describing sociopaths who use the internet as a way to ingratiate themselves into the lives of others and leech off them. There literally are scores of professional grifters who go from one domestic situation to the next, living like parasites off unsuspecting women (and men: con artists can be women too) who were maybe looking to fill an empty spot in their lives. Social networking websites and online dating services have made it all too easy for people to anonymously seek out new situations -- the preferred target/victims are usually divorced or widowed and all too happy to take up with the Mr. Perfect who appears out of nowhere to sweep them off their virtual feet.
After a few weeks the odd behavior starts to raise eyebrows. They turn out to not do or work where they say they did -- if they even have a job at all -- become increasingly secretive and angered when confronted with inconsistencies, building a web of lies that eventually becomes too convoluted for even the liar to keep track of. Usually they are working new targets while wearing out their welcome, often visiting with these new sources of income/sex/subsistence under the guise of work related travel while keeping up appearances back at home. And when the stuff hits the fan and the lies are revealed they are out the door & set up with a new place to live and grift some more until its time to move on again, rinse and repeat ... Sound familiar? You very well could be the victim of a cyberpath too and not even know it. I almost was, which is why I read up about it and learned enough to recognize the core behavior of a sociopathic leech.
THE STEPFATHER covers all those bases, just without the secretive online life & locked out cellphones. The scenario the film establishes is even more possible today then it ever was with the added movie thriller touches like disguises, brutal murders, psycho killer histrionics, and "Lost" actor Terry O'Quinn is very credible as the psychopathic perfect family man Jerry. One troubling aspect of the movie is how it went out of its way to set up hottie actress Jill Schoelen (who was 23 at the time of production) as a 16 year old girl and then trots her out for an infamous naked shower scene that instantly transforms the movie from an all too likely urban thriller into an exploitation film.
Then you read more & learn that the film was actually written in part by a woman, along with noted crime writer Donald E. Westlake, perhaps best known for the novel "The Hunter" which provided John Boorman with his source material for his 1967 neo-noir classic POINT BLANK. For some reason the writers & producers felt it necessary to suggest jailbait nudity, but then again horror movies always have been expected to have elements in them that were uncalled for or meant to shock or disturb. It is only recently that they have become more sanitized & predictable, substituting graphic dismemberment for more disturbing suggestions. Think of how relatively bloodless the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" was in comparison to just your basic SAW movie to see what I mean.
In any event this is still a crackerjack little thriller, expertly staged with some great shock sequences, never boring and tightly written enough to recommend it even if openly wondering what the real intentionality at work was behind certain scenes. The one place where I thought it mis-stepped was in the scene where the young daughter oversees an over the top meltdown by the psycho and isn't believed by anyone when she reveals what she saw. You'd think her mom would have taken it a bit more seriously at any rate, but then again that's one of the aspects about the 2009 era real life cyberpath stories which is all too common: Nobody questions what they want to believe in, and all too often people are just not what they seem even after you think you've known them for 20 years. Creepy.
7/10
score 7/10
Squonkamatic 2 November 2009
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2151479/35128
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