Editorials
Why ‘The Stepfather’ (1987) Remains One of Horror’s Most Overlooked Psychological Thrillers
We all have one person in our lives who carries everything on their backs. It could be a family member whose work ethic shocks everyone around them or a friend juggling dozens of projects at once and still managing to get everything done just right. Thankless individuals who go unrecognized, but sometimes, that person ends up getting the spotlight they deserve. To me, The Stepfather series is the perfect example of that in cinematic terms.
Revisiting The Stepfather (1987) and Its Forgotten Legacy
The Stepfather, directed by Joseph Ruben in 1987, is the first in a small franchise of horror films that feels pretty forgotten in the grand scheme of 80s slashers and thrillers. But the film is a really interesting study of how one actor can take a role and make it their own, in a way that’s so compelling it makes you want to see more of that character even when the movies he’s in are kind of mediocre.
As the cultural conversation of the era has turned into a lot of circular discourse about how much better effects were back then and how unproven concepts made it to the screen more often, it should be easy to forget a psychological horror film with such a simple premise: what if your stepfather you hated was actually a freaky serial killer who was going to take your family out? From that premise sprung an unexpectedly great film, carried entirely by its lead actor.
From Crime Fiction to Horror Film: Richard Stark’s Influence
I have a weird connection to The Stepfather because it was written by Richard Stark, who wrote one of my favorite crime stories of all time: The Hunter. I didn’t even know Richard Stark was only a pseudonym until I watched The Stepfather and discovered it was writer Donald E. Westlake’s pen name. And Westlake’s proficiency with crime fiction translates here smoothly, because he took a horrifying real-life story of absolute evil (straight out of Westfield, New Jersey) and brought it to the screen with a true-to-life character.
The Criminal Behind The Stepfather Series: John List
The real-life killer behind The Stepfather films was John List. To most people, he was a family man, living the dream with his wife and three children. He was a banker, hard-working and clean living, on the outside at least. He had a close relationship with many of the people in the Lutheran church he attended every Sunday, and was well-liked. But in reality, List was about to become one of the most infamous mass murderers in American history.
Behind the scenes, List was struck with financial trouble after financial trouble that exacerbated his already worsening mental health problems. A number of layoffs and setbacks left him and his family teetering on the brink of poverty despite the fact they lived in a 19-room mansion (I couldn’t even begin to explain how that works, don’t ask). List’s relationship with his wife was damaged by her spending habits, alcoholism, and deteriorating mental state due to untreated syphilis.
He was left to “raise” three children, whom he was verbally and physically abusive to; his daughter Patricia even warned her drama coach that she was certain her father was going to kill her. Then her father actually sat all the kids down and told them they should prepare to die. And eventually, Patricia, her mother and grandmother, and both of her brothers became List’s victims in 1971.
John List’s Disappearance and Eventual Capture
List left his car in long-term parking at JFK International and disappeared with almost nothing in his name. Leaving a confession for his pastor behind in the form of a letter, it took weeks for neighbors to report the family’s disappearance, thanks to List’s meticulous planning. He had already slipped through the hands of the police by running from state to state, before eventually settling down into a new persona: Robert Clark. He eventually “fell in love” with a woman named Delores Miller, and the two moved to Virginia together soon after that.
Their relationship ended abruptly after an episode of America’s Most Wanted aired, in which famous forensic artist Frank Bender made an incredibly accurate sculpt of what List looked like at the time. After years of close calls and narrow captures, List was discovered. It took 17 and a half years for List to be caught. He was sentenced to five consecutive life sentences and died in jail in 2008.
The Actor Who Gave Life to The Stepfather Series
Now, I mention all of this above to punctuate one thing: The Stepfather isn’t the only fictionalized retelling of List’s story, but it is the most effective. Its opening scene is a gruesome recounting of List’s disaffected disappearance, how he slipped off to freedom, to an alternate life of his own design for nearly two decades, with little emotion at all. It opens on a mystery—what kind of man is he, if he is human at all? How does one simply walk away from a crime scene so calm and collected?
Terry O’Quinn’s Jerry Blake: A Horror Performance for the Ages
Because at the heart of the List case is the intensely intriguing and horrifying persona that is John List. To adapt that kind of personality, that deeply unhinged and deceptive person, is the kind of acting challenge many actors would pounce on immediately. And for horror fans, an unlikely hero stepped up to the plate: Terry O’Quinn. He’s best known for playing John Locke on the show Lost, but he’s also a quintessential “that one guy” character actor; he’s been in so many films and television shows you can probably throw a dart in any direction and hit his filmography.
I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call the first two Stepfather movies iconic (entertaining, definitely). Still, our main man Terry O’Quinn is incredibly iconic in his performance of Jerry Blake. O’Quinn really does enthrall you, and he’s an actor to beat when it comes to depicting someone slowly unraveling and releasing bursts of madness along the way like solar flares on a star’s surface. And I don’t just say that because he bears a bizarre resemblance to an older Anthony Starr.
He even almost tricks you into thinking Jerry’s moments of manufactured sweetness and maudlin family-man aesthetic are genuine, but then you remember what you’re watching and go right back to hating him with a passion. He is a quintessential horror movie villain because you despise him, but you’re transfixed by him.
Identity, Deception, and the Defining Line of the Franchise
He’s an emotionally disturbed con man, a parasite who can worm his way into a new skin with sociopathic ease. And when it all comes crashing down, to the point where even he isn’t sure what role he’s supposed to play for his fake family, its fantastic. With a line as simple as, “Wait a minute, who am I here?”, O’Quinn cemented himself as the definitive depiction of the character.
Why Each of The Stepfather Films is Worth Watching
As I said, these films are far from perfect, but each one brings something a little new and different to the table. It’s fun to see O’Quinn return to the role in Stepfather 2, playing opposite of the legendary Caroline Williams and Meg Foster; a psycho-slasher finale at a wedding is just hard to beat. Stepfather 3 brings a surprisingly good changing of hands to the title role, though, since despite O’Quinn being replaced by Robert Wightman, Wightman brings just the right kind of energy to the role; he’s the perfect fit for the much campier and goofier tone of the 3rd film, and I was honestly very impressed with how he brought the role to life. But be warned: don’t bother with the remake. It is borderline bloodless, and incredibly boring. You can put a million Penn Badgley’s in that film, I’m not watching it again.
The Stepfather films aren’t anyone’s favorite of the many horror fans I’ve met and spoken with. But they are a capsule of how one artist can have enough staying power to keep them in your mind. So, for all my people out there who are going to check the trilogy out now thanks to this article: happy watching horror fans, and have fun!
The United States spent most of this year celebrating its 250th anniversary. There have been parades, fireworks, and endless reminders of what the nation wants us to think are its founding ideals. Yet anniversaries are as much about what we choose to remember as they are about what we choose to forget. There is another anniversary this year. Five years ago this month, Candyman was released. The fact that both that film and America are sharing an anniversary this year may have been an accident, but that makes it no less significant.
Released amid another national reckoning over race, Nia DaCosta’s film asks a question that every celebration of America ought to confront: Is it possible to commemorate this nation without fully reckoning with the violence woven into its history? More than a sequel to a horror classic, Candyman is a meditation on the ghosts that haunt America because it has never fully reckoned with the past that created them.
How the Original Candyman Confronted America’s Racial History
The original Candyman understood this. Released in 1992 and set in the almost post-apocalyptic urban decay that was Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing projects, Bernard Rose’s film arrived only months after the L.A. Race Riots, a moment when this country was coming to terms with the way the country’s relationship with Black folks was shaped by decades of segregation and racism.
Most audiences saw a supernatural slasher about a hook-handed killer summoned by saying his name five times into a mirror. But beneath the horror was a far more unsettling story. Candyman was about the lingering consequences of America’s racial history and the way white America has sometimes turned Black suffering into myth instead of confronting the systems that produced it.
The film’s true horror was never simply Candyman. It was the realization that monsters can be born from histories a nation refuses to face. That is exactly where the 2021 film expands the original’s vision.
Nia DaCosta’s Candyman Turns One Ghost Into Many
Bernard Rose’s Candyman explored the legacy of a single act of racist terror. Nia DaCosta’s film argues that the tragedy wasn’t confined to Daniel Robitaille, the man who became the monster. The 2021 film posits that Candyman is not one man but many.
Daniel Robitaille was lynched for loving a white woman. Sherman Fields takes on the mantle of the supernatural slasher because he was beaten to death by police after being falsely accused of harming a child. Anthony McCoy ultimately becomes part of the same legend. Their stories span generations, but they are connected by a nation that repeatedly produces the same injustice under different names at different points in history. The genius of the sequel is that it transforms Candyman from an individual ghost into a symbol of America’s recurring racial violence.
Candyman Shows How History Repeats Itself
History, the film suggests, is not something that happened once. It is something that keeps happening. That is why Candyman is one of my favorite films to teach in my Film and Philosophy course.
Students walk into class expecting a horror movie. They leave wrestling with questions about history, memory, and justice. We spend little time talking about jump scares or gore. (Because, let’s be honest, there is not much of that in the film.) Instead, we ask why some histories become legends while others are forgotten, what societies owe their victims, and whether a nation can ever move forward without honestly confronting the violence that shaped it.
The Horror of Remembering What America Wants to Forget
A good horror film reveals what we fear. What makes Candyman great is how it reveals what we would rather not remember. That is what haunted me the first time I saw it, long after the credits had rolled.
Five years after its release, Candyman remains one of the most unsettling movies in recent years because the history it confronts is not safely behind us. The original film understood that America’s racial violence could not simply be buried, while the 2021 film showed how easily that violence can be reproduced across generations.
Its Unquestionable Legacy in Horror
As America celebrates 250 years, Candyman reminds us that commemorating the nation’s founding requires remembering all this country’s history, including the parts that make the celebration uncomfortable.
We cannot exorcise a ghost by refusing to acknowledge why it exists. Perhaps that is the film’s most important lesson. The past does not haunt us because we remember it. It haunts us because we don’t.
Sometimes it feels borderline ridiculous to gush about John Carpenter’s The Thing as much as I do. It’s gotten to the point where when I’m asked about my favorite horror film by both friends and strangers, a little bit of embarrassment tinges my expression as I answer; it feels so obvious and rarely surprises anyone. Saying I love The Thing when people expect me to bust out an obscure foreign horror film or a cerebral thriller makes me feel like a rosy cheeked child with a propeller hat and a giant lollipop. “Wow, you love one of the most popular horror films of all time, congrats!”
But it’s just the truth. The first film of John Carpenter’s “Apocalypse Trilogy”, all three of its films are among my favorites. But The Thing has a special place in my heart. It shaped my taste in horror, my taste in most media in general, to be honest. It’s become the gold standard, 10/10 baseline test for the vast majority of my reviews; it is a perfect film, so I judge other films against it. And it’s one of the few movies I have to run back to and watch yearly like clockwork (usually when I’m spending a part of winter tied to the couch). It is, in all regards, the perfect film. If it isn’t the perfect film, then it is at the very least the perfect sci-fi horror film.
So, what exactly qualifies The Thing for literal perfection? It’s a high bar to clear. This article, as informal as it is compared to most of my editorials, is an attempt to explain it.
Even if Carpenter Isn’t the Goat, His Team for The Thing Was
As far as crews go, John Carpenter’s The Thing had the cinematic equivalent of the ’96 Chicago Bulls behind it. We’re talking about an amalgam of some of the most talented people to ever grace the silver screens with their work, boasting alongside John Carpenter two of the heaviest hitters in all of cinematic history: Dean Cundey, and Rob Bottin. Now, we can debate all day about whether John Carpenter is the greatest of all time when it comes to horror directors. Personally, I’m just as liable to say Cronenberg, Del Toro, or Hooper as I am to say Carpenter.
But the key factor to remember here is that Carpenter is the coach, not the star player; the Phil Jackson, if you will. Yes, he is the visionary who directed a near perfect cast of players and composed a tale of pure, apocalyptic paranoia. More importantly, he put together and coordinated the team that would make his vision manifest as reality. And if Carpenter is Phil Jackson, Rob Bottin is the team’s Michael Jordan here, the greatest of all time.
(And to all my Lebron fans, I love you, but you have to sit down for this analogy.)
The Legend of Rob Bottin
Bottin’s story is borderline unbelievable, but it’s the best way to explain how abnormally skilled he is and what he brought to the table for Carpenter. At age 14, Bottin became an apprentice to the at-the-time GOAT Rick Baker after sending him a letter seeking an autograph while sharing his creature designs. He was a quick study under Baker, joining him on the ’76 King Kong and Star Wars, before bouncing to Carpenter’s The Fog and then iconic werewolf picture The Howling.
When he reunited with Carpenter in 1982, he now had 6 classic films under his belt and was moving like an FX bullet train. From ages 22 to 23, he worked on The Thing for 57 weeks in both pre-production and on set. Nearly 24/7 for 400 days, Bottin’s all-gas no-brakes work ethic made The Thing at the cost of his own health, and it resulted in him being hospitalized with pneumonia. He survived and went on to make Robocop. And at least one of your favorite films.
Because no conventional disease or weaponry can kill Rob Bottin.
The Thing Still Features Horror’s Best Practical Effects
Okay, that last bit might be hyperbolic, but the man sincerely put his life on the line to make special effects that haven’t been topped since. Not the best effects in just horror history, or science fiction history, but effects that haven’t been topped in any genre for over 44 years. Not by his mentor Rick Baker, not by Screaming Mad George, not by Alec Gillis (though shoutout to him for his criminally scrapped work on The Thing (2011), and even more criminally ignored work on Harbinger Down). I love Dawn of the Dead, believe me, I do, but he certainly isn’t being beaten out by Tom Savini’s body of work. And that isn’t to disrespect and say that all of the artists that I just mentioned are bad, they’re the best in the game! But Rob Bottin was just that much better.
This inevitably invites the counterpoint: “But it wasn’t just Bottin! Stan Winston and his people were the ones who worked on the Dog Thing to give Bottin’s crew a break, and that’s the best monster in the movie!”. To which I say: look me in the eye and tell me the Dog Thing sequence is better than the Palmer Thing sequence. That’s not even counting the Norwegian Thing, both Norris Things, and the absolutely masterful final creature work that was the Blair Thing. The only reason Bottin and his people didn’t win Academy Awards for their work was because they got jumped by E.T., The Dark Crystal, Conan the Barbarian, and Blade Runner all at the same time at the Oscars. It’s just a consequence of being released during the best year for movies ever.
Okay, Now We Can Talk About Dean Cundey
But of course, these effects are then supported by another true legend: Dean Cundey. Selling people on Rob Bottin being the greatest effects artist of all time, isn’t nearly as difficult as advocating for Cundey, who despite an impressive catalog of filmography, slowed down in the back half of his career. He’s often overshadowed in conversations when it comes to The Thing; it’s always talk of Carpenter’s directing, Bottin’s effects, and Ennio Morricone’s incredible soundtrack up front, and rarely any of Cundey’s work. He isn’t spoken about in the same breath as John Alcott or Michael Ballhaus, cinematographers whose work is associated with prestigious cinema because of their proximity to great directors.
Cundey might not be the director of photography your Martin Scorsese’s or Paul Thomas Anderson’s went running to, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t think he was the most important cinematographer in horror history, just for his work with Carpenter and Spielberg. He helmed three of the most influential films in all of horror with his lighting and camera operating: The Thing, Halloween, and Jurassic Park. The man’s fingerprints are automatically on the cultural DNA of all slashers, most practical effects-driven horror films, and the biggest gateway horror franchise in film history.
The Dream Team That Made The Thing Perfection
Cundey has gone on record saying that despite Carpenter’s input, he was effectively given free rein to light and frame The Thing. The man didn’t just know how to shoot effects to make them evoke true disgust from the audience, he was able to manipulate every aspect of the shot to terrify. His sixth sense cinematography wasn’t just for lighting and playing with shadows, but for the speed of camera movement, the power of his blocking, and for having a complete grasp of communicating texture and temperature.
And temperature is the soul of The Thing. John J. Lloyd’s production design of the research station and the great white expanse around it feels just as bone chilling as the film’s antagonist, thanks to Cundey. There isn’t a single flat shot in the thing, not a moment that doesn’t feel dynamic, and it’s because of Dean Cundey.
Now, all this being said about Bottin and Cundey, they are far from the only ones who synthesized this structurally perfect organism of a movie. Every bit of Todd C. Ramsay’s editing splices the film’s scenes together to move perfectly in-time. David Lewis Yewdall’s sound design and how it gave a voice to the horrors on screen will be etched into people’s brains forever. The point is that everyone, every single person who had a hand in making the film, helped make the movie flawless.
Like the cells of the thing from another world, each crew member on John Carpenter’s The Thing moved in concert with the next, in unison, to create the greatest sci-fi horror of all time. So, is it any wonder why 40 some years later, the film still has us all captured?
