Movies
Revisiting The Stepfather Films (And The Insane Real Crime Spree That Inspired Them)

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.
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.
ODDLY MEMORABLE FOR A FORGOTTEN FRANCHISE
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.
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 Stepfatherand 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
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.
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?
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.
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!
Movies
The Best Horror You Can Stream on Shudder in February 2025
The Shudder February lineup is after my heart. Obviously, the app is adding more 2024 titles like The Dead Thing and Little Bites. However, they are also adding so many cool movies I have been dying to make my friends watch these last few years. There are some films guaranteed to make some heads roll alongside some cute vampire rom-coms hitting the horror streamer this month, and I cannot wait to revisit each title. Check out the five movies I’m highlighting this year, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I do! So here are the best movies to stream on Shudder this February!

The Shudder February lineup is after my heart. Obviously, the app is adding more 2024 titles like The Dead Thing and Little Bites. However, they are also adding so many cool movies I have been dying to make my friends watch these last few years. There are some films guaranteed to make some heads roll alongside some cute vampire rom-coms hitting the horror streamer this month, and I cannot wait to revisit each title. Check out the five movies I’m highlighting this year, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!
The Best Movies to Stream on Shudder This Month
The Coffee Table (2022)
A couple of new parents experiencing a rough patch decide to buy a coffee table, not knowing that the decision will alter their lives forever. The Coffee Table was one of my favorite movies of last year, and it is one of those titles you want to know as little as possible when you hit play. It is the bleakest and most stressful comedy I have seen in years, and I love it. This one goes out to my fellow sickos (complimentary). Please watch it the day it hits Shudder before the internet can ruin it for you.
You can watch The Coffee Table on February 24th.
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (2024)
A young vampire who is too sensitive to kill for her supper meets a young loner with suicidal tendencies. What starts as a transactional relationship soon blossoms into an unexpected friendship. This movie is much cuter than I like my vampire movies. However, it is still a nice time for those looking to fill the void left by What We Do in the Shadows ending. It’s also not the worst romantic horror movie we have ever seen. I had very few notes for it in my review, and I know it made it onto quite a few top 10 lists of last year.
You can watch Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person on February 10th.
My Animal (2023)
An outcast falls for a new girl in her small town, which makes it difficult to keep her darkest secret hidden. My Animal is a severely overlooked lesbian werewolf tale. It has been stuck in streamer purgatory for years, so finally finding a streaming home is a big deal. This moody story stars Bobbi Salvör Menuez and Amandla Stenberg and deserves your attention. It belongs somewhere between Ginger Snaps and Good Manners in the women werewolves we must celebrate. Make this feral love story a date night this winter, preferably during a full moon.
You can watch My Animal on February 1st.
Nightsiren (2022)
A woman returns to her birthplace, searching for answers to questions about her childhood. However, she is met with ancient superstitions and a community accusing her of witchcraft and murder. Nightsiren has been on my radar for a couple of years and is the only movie I have not seen. I love that Shudder is letting me find out if it’s as good as it looks this February. Worst-case scenario, I can say that I watched a Slovak-Czech feminist psychological horror this month, and that feels like a win.
You can watch Nightsiren on February 10th.
Tiger Stripes (2024)
An 11-year-old discovers the body horror of puberty as her body begins to change. Gothic horror is out, and menstruation is in because Tiger Stripes is the kind of period horror we need more of in the world. I fell for this cute little movie during a festival a couple of years ago and am so glad it has finally made its way to Shudder. It’s funny and very relatable. It is also a new genre entry destigmatizing the menses, and we need more movies in this subgenre. So, while you should watch it with as many people as possible, it’s also a delightful brunch body horror moment.
You can watch Tiger Stripes on February 24th.
It seems like Shudder has read my diary and added titles that I need the rest of you to see. I hope you check out these tales of lesbian werewolves, fun period horror, and everything between this February. You truly deserve cool new stories by cool new filmmakers, and that is exactly what the streamer is giving us almost weekly this month. What a time to be a subscriber!
Movies
Celebrate Tobe Hooper’s Birthday by Watching His Most Underrated Horror Classic
Were he still alive, it would have been Tobe Hooper’s 81st birthday today, and I’d like to take time on this birthday to shine a light on one of Hooper’s cult classics to celebrate that occasion. Most horror movie lovers will carry with them vivid memories of seeing Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Poltergeist for the first time, but it’s Hooper’s most underrated classic you should be checking out and making some new memories with today: Lifeforce.

Filmmaking without limits sounds like a pipedream for many. It’s lofty, it’s incredibly expensive, and it feels borderline impossible without the world’s most massive windfall of good luck. But one of horror’s favorite directors, Tobe Hooper, got a chance to do just that back in 1985. And he did it with a film that most people outside of the horror sphere have forgotten.
Were he still alive, it would have been Tobe Hooper’s 81st birthday today, and I’d like to take time on this birthday to shine a light on one of Hooper’s cult classics to celebrate that occasion. Most horror movie lovers will carry with them vivid memories of seeing Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Poltergeist for the first time, but it’s Hooper’s most underrated classic you should be checking out and making some new memories with today: Lifeforce.
While the British-American space shuttle called the Churchill approaches Halley’s comet to study it, it ends up running afoul of a bizarre construct: a hundred and fifty-mile long spire, made out of an unidentifiable organic material. What the crew finds inside is the corpse of a massive, strange bat creature, and three crystal coffins, one containing an enchantingly beautiful woman. And what the Churchill brings back to Earth kickstarts a vampiric alien invasion, and puts not just the lives of the astronauts at risk—it’s the lifeforce of the entire world in the balance.
For the moviegoers of 1985, the film Lifeforce was just another odd b-movie filled with weird visual effects and a pale, nude French woman walking around and sucking out people’s souls. Like most weird science fiction, the initial test audiences didn’t get it, and when it went to theatres public audiences and critics REALLY didn’t get it (outside of star Mathilda May’s sex appeal, which everyone gets). But Lifeforce isn’t just a misunderstood sci-fi horror movie about energy vampires; it’s a testament to Hooper’s creative spirit more than any of his other works. And that’s partly to do with the studio that produced it, who gave Hooper free reign over the set.
I sometimes wonder if we’ll ever get another movie studio like Cannon, mainly because The Cannon Group was the closest thing to a “free-spirited” film company I’ve ever seen. Under the control of partners Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, the studio was notorious for not only their prolific output and the number of productions it had running simultaneously, but also for their hands-off approach to producing these movies. They largely left their directors to make whatever they wanted and picked up the finished product when it was ready to distribute. So, when Hooper was approached to direct a science fiction film after many years of working on horror movies like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Return of the Living Dead, he took the opportunity. What he got was a lofty and loose script, an adaptation of the British sci-fi novel The Space Vampires, a title which was quickly reworked into Lifeforce.
What he made was completely unexpected.
A madcap production ensued that really sculpted a legendary image of the director among the cast and crew. Those who worked on the set of Lifeforce described the energy Hooper brought to the set as something like “a demonic dwarf” scurrying around and “sprinkling gunpowder on everything”. According to them, he was a man filled with energy, running about with a cigar in one hand and a Dr. Pepper in the other. Watching Lifeforce now, that energy definitely shows; it feels a lot less like a director getting a simple blank check, and more like an artist getting the funds and manpower of a small nation to do a classic 60’s science fiction film; Hooper cited Quatermass and The Pit as major inspirations for the style and tone of Lifeforce.
He lovingly smithed the movie, piece by piece until it was exactly what he wanted, and each piece that was forged together seemed more complicated than the last. Lifeforce’s early sequences in space are a bombshell launched by an art department of a different caliber; the kind of talent that could make unbelievably realistic matte paintings of the vampire’s ship exteriors, and also carve a soundstage of the same quality out of real-life materials to represent its guts. On Earth, the miniatures are just as grand, giving us a bird’s eye view of London in chaos as explosions and rioting rock the city; this all culminates at the final showdown, running through the flaming streets of London to St. Paul’s Cathedral, a set that could fool anyone into thinking it’s the real thing. Everything is ablaze, a perfect reflection of the atmosphere that Hooper has conducted, a symphony of kinetic energy and Lovecraftian madness.
And on the ground, up close, a team of makeup artists led by ILM champion and Academy Award winner John Dykstra brought to life the film’s various fiends: incredible instantly decaying energy zombies, people exploding into dust, giant alien bat creatures, and ethereal flying light effects painstakingly etched into the film frame by frame (not including the massive, actual 10,000-lumen bulb they had flying through the set on a wire).
Hundreds of extras moving in concert, pyrotechnics exploding on a macro and miniature scale, controlled burns and swarms of people all inside of Hooper’s sweeping and apocalyptic camera work. It is an incredible and grandiose finale that serves as a crescendo to the film’s narrative, one that makes a sci-fi of planetary proportions really feel that massive. It just all comes together to feel so much bigger than the sum of its parts.
Lifeforce is a tribute to Tobe Hooper’s boldness as a filmmaker, and his love of the craft; it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create, as he described it in the documentary Cannon Fodder, anything he wanted to make. He seized that chance and used it to its fullest, and what resulted is a love letter to the art of making movies with no boundaries and no restrictions. And on his birthday, I can’t think of a better way to honor his work than to see what he could do when the gloves were off, and he could hit you with some serious bare-knuckle cinematography.
Best of all you can find the movie free to stream on Tubi, so you have even less of an excuse to not check it out now. So as always, happy watching horror fans!