FOR DYING OUT LOUD 666

PATRIARCH KNOWS BEST



THE STEPFATHER (1987)
Terry O'Quinn, Shelley Hack, Jill Schoelen, Stephen Shellen, Charles Lanyer, Jeff Schultz, Blu Mankuma
Directed by Joseph Ruben
Henry Morrison is in his bathroom, cleaning himself up from blood. After a haircut, fresh shave, and new contact lenses, he grabs a suitcase and calmly leaves his quiet house. He's just massacred his entire family of 4 in Bellevue,WA, and has tied up loose ends. On a ferry, he tips the suitcase into the ocean. One year later and now living in a Seattle suburb (Oakridge), he's assumed the identity of mild-mannered Jerry Blake, a real estate agent. His new wife is Susan Maine, a recent widow. 16yr old rebellious stepdaughter, Stephanie, is not a fan of Mom's new hubby, and her relationship with Jerry (even after he gave her a puppy) is frosty. Due to grieving over her real Dad's death and from fighting in school, she is seeing kindly psychiatrist, Dr. Bondurant, who tells her to give the new parent a chance. Stephanie is soon expelled and expresses her wish to go to boarding school but Mom and Step-Pop aren't enthused about what they feel would be her essentially running away. Back in Bellevue, Jim Ogilvie convinces a reporter to run an article about the still-unsolved murders of the Morrison family. Jim's sister, Vicky, was Jerry's wife. During a backyard barbecue, Jerry reads the newspaper story and Stephanie sees him visibly shaken by it. Fetching ice cream in their basement, she sees him ranting crazily to himself about 'keeping family together' but he tells her that he's just blowing off steam from the stress of work.

When she finds the article, and confides in a friend by suspecting Jerry is the killer, she writes the newspaper (under the guise of a class assignment) asking for a photo of Henry Morrison. Jim meets up with the reporter again, angry that Henry's picture was not with the story. The reporter tells him to forget the tragedy and move on but Jim can't & will not let it go. After Jerry intercepts Stephanie's mail of the newspaper sending her Henry's photo, he confiscates it and has another solo freakout in the basement. Jim gets information from a detective about Henry Morrison, learning the name is false and that he may have committed the same crime even earlier. With no evidence for the police to go after him, Jimmy gets a gun to take matters in his own hand. While Jerry gets Stephanie re-admitted back to her school, she tells her shrink she is still worried and afraid of him. As Jerry had refused to meet with Dr. Bondurant, the Doc uses a ruse of pretending to be a potential home buyer under the name Mr. Martin. Stephanie excitedly finds the mail sent from the newspaper but is deflated by the fake photo which Jerry has substituted to steer her away from the truth. When Bondurant meets Jerry at a sale house, he asks too many questions tingling Jerry's Spidey-sense, and is beaten to death by a 2x4 wood plank. That night, his body is placed in his car which is staged in a fiery accident over a cliff, and Jerry tells Stephanie (already tricked into feeling guilty for her suspicions) of his demise in the morning, consoling her as she cries.

The 2 bond over a birdhouse they raise on their front lawn. From a clue in a magazine, Jim gets a lead on Jerry's new location, while the newly happy Step-Pop espouses -- in almost sacred sanctity -- how special family is over Thanksgiving dinner. But the good tidings end faster than crap through a goose when Jerry goes ballistic from catching Stephanie kissing a boy on their front porch one night, absurdly accusing the young man of rape. Daughter and Mom argue, and Stephanie takes off after being slapped in the face. When Susan tells Jerry he is at fault for his hysterical overreaction, he quits his job the next morning just as Jim has driven into town (in his beat-up junkbox) looking to find him. At an appointment for a new shrink, Stephanie sneaks into Dr. Bondurant's office and finds a written record of the sale house meeting. Jim conducts a door-to-door search of recently married widows and divorcées, crossing names off a list. Jerry has changed his appearance and has created a new identity, now getting ready to settle in Rosedale,WA, as Bill Hodgkins who works for an insurance company. The Maine family is on the verge of being no more but Jerry keeps up pretenses between his commutes -- by which time he has found a new house and has set his eyes on his next door neighbor, Dorothy. It's just her and her kids, and it looks like they'll be an item in no time. Jim shows up at the Oakridge home and meets Susan, telling her he will return to surprise Jerry. She calls the real estate agency and is stunned when told Jerry quit several days ago.

Jim gets confirmation of Jerry & his job description from a photo he has and races back to the Oakridge home. [If Jim had the photo all along, why wouldn't he have shown it to Susan upon his introduction?] Susan questions Jerry regarding his whereabouts but he lies and in the movie's most iconic moment, acts confused before smashing her in the face with a phone, and then punching her down the basement stairs. With a kitchen knife, he intends to kill Stephanie who is showering upstairs but Jim shows up, and the determined ex-brother-in-law is at last face-to-face with Jerry. Will he get justice with his revolver? Will we get to see Scary Jerry snap and fly off into one of his patented rages? Will Step-Pop atleast have the decency to wait til Stephanie gets dressed before attacking her? What about that knife? Will it take a lady to save the day? Outside of Freddy, Jason, Michael, Pinhead & the Cenobites, Chucky, Leatherface, the ghosts after Carol Anne Freeling, the vampires after Charley Brewster & Peter Vincent, and the demons after Ash Williams, THE STEPFATHER was an uncommon but refreshing and above average entry in 80's thriller/horror for presenting the most terrible of monsters -- a person in real life in our everyday, plausible midst. The movie is loosely based on family annihilator, John List, and O'Quinn is excellent in a breakthrough role as the clean-cut, conservative, hard-working, and outwardly nice guy with best intentions. Jerry's sole idyllic dream is of wanting nothing other than a picture-perfect, modern family.

This seems normal enough, but the nightmare is that he gives horrendous new meaning to "home sweet home" because he keeps having to "erase" the inevitable mistakes and disappointments brought on by a spouse and kids that can never live up to his antiquated, high standards (which strongly hint at a need for sexual dominance). And in his warped mind, the burdens that result in breakdown beyond repair are never his fault so in a rinse-repeat cycle, his only solution to "fix" damage is to keep obliterating innocent victims and restart the slow process of ingratiating, for if at first you don't succeed -- kill, and kill again. Jerry maintains a veneer of stability to keep his fantasy of old-fashioned values in place, but when cracks begin eroding & crumbling his surface, he predictably switches gears and flips on a dime. And after outbursts of explosive violence, he's right back to whistling 'Camptown Races'. A cult classic, O'Quinn owns this movie, and to his credit he never goes over the top. Yes, he's Jekyll & Hyde-psycho but fascinating for a current individual who appears stuck in imaginary, 1950's Norman Rockwell nostalgia -- which we can only speculate may be due to a possible childhood trauma. The co-stars are solid as well. Best known as a brief Charlie's Angel, Shelley Hack as caring Susan plays a believable cluelessness (until it's too late), and Jill Schoelen as Stephanie pulls off all the emotions of moody teen angst, distrust & defiance. 30yrs on, THE STEPFATHER still remains a potent and fantastic nailbiter in the arena of abusive, familial upheaval.




FRAILTY (2001)
Bill Paxton, Matthew McConaughey, Powers Boothe, Matt O'Leary, Jeremy Sumpter, Derk Cheetwood, Missy Crider
Directed by Bill Paxton
By way of a stolen ambulance, a regretful Fenton Meiks is in the Dallas office of FBI Agent Wesley Doyle and tells him that his younger brother, Adam Meiks, is the elusive "God's Hand" serial killer. Adam has since taken his own life with Fenton keeping a promise of burying his body in a public park rose garden in Thurman,TX. The site also contains the bodies of murder victims and as Fenton and skeptical Doyle drive to Thurman to verify the startling claim, we flashback to the summer of 1979 with Fenton narrating the childhood of the brothers. Their Dad is a humble single father, and car mechanic who is devout and devoted to his boys. One night he bursts into their bedroom, wakens them from sleep, and tells them that he has been visited by an angel (through a glistening trophy) sent from God, who has a special mission for him: to kill demons who are hiding in ordinary people. No one outside of the family can be told of this "job" or else he will die, thus bounding the brothers to secrecy. Obsessed & fanatic Dad is waiting for a sent hit-list of people to be "removed" which we later see is just him writing names out of a phone book. (Or is he infact gathering up their addresses?) The individuals are first abducted at night (in a newly bought van), brought to the Meiks home and bound in a shed, determined to be a demon by mere touch, killed with an axe named 'Otis', and finally buried in the rose garden behind their house. Driving around searching for unholy prey, a woman is kidnapped ("captured") from her house, and next a man from a shopping mall parking lot. At every stage, Dad has his boys along as accomplices, and views himself as carrying out commands that cannot by disobeyed.

Young Adam is a true believer who soon states that he can also see the same sins of the demons that Dad sees in his visions. Adam even draws up his own crayon-scrawled list. As Fenton struggles to comprehend, he is instantly wary of this "work," and is afraid of the criminal participation. He sees Adam as too easily manipulated and desperately tries to rein his little brother in (suggesting they run away) but to no avail, which incurs distrust for his opinion of thinking Dad is psychotic, and even worse: wrong for what he is doing. Fenton's growing ill-at-ease and defiance is witnessed by his father, who states that the angel has deemed him an untrustworthy threat, so Dad forces him to dig a large square hole in the backyard which after a week is built into a storm cellar with the shed rolled over it. Fenton is told to pray so that he may see the light, but he steadfastly refuses. When Dad abducts another victim and orders Fenton to kill him, Fenton takes off straight to the Sheriff, telling him everything. The Sheriff brings him back home, not believing the story but checks the cellar nonetheless. Dad kills him and at the rose garden, in tormented sincerity, again insists he is not murdering people but destroying demons. He angrily blames Fenton for compromising the mission, and thus being responsible for the death of an innocent. In their arguing, he is called crazy and raises a shovel close to striking Fenton but is stopped by a pleading Adam. When they return to the shed, Fenton is forcefully locked in the cellar in hope that a divine revelation will fill him with faith. Denied food, Adam brings him water but does not free him when begged.

After weeks of confinement, near starvation, and having passed out, Dad finally takes Fenton out of the cellar, who now pretends to have seen God which fools Dad. After father and son join for another abduction (which almost backfires), the victim is brought back to the cellar and Adam now with the axe is told to kill him. He hesitates and instead plunges the axe into Dad's chest. Adam rushes to his father's side, and Dad whispers in his ear before he dies as Fenton stands looking over him. The look on Adam's face is one of betrayal. Fenton removes duct tape from the victim's mouth, who screams just as Adam runs in to kill him. Adult Fenton tells Agent Doyle that after the brothers buried Dad and the victim in the rose garden, they reported Dad missing and as he was never found, they ended up in separate orphanages. Having arrived at the rose garden, a handcuffed Fenton is removed from the back seat of the car and tells Doyle that he made Adam promise to bury him at the same place if he was ever to be "destroyed." Adult Fenton now reveals he is infact Adam and kept his promise, now leading Doyle (who has his gun drawn) to the body of Fenton who grew up to be the serial killer -- traumatized by his father, and conducting his own killing spree (with bodies buried in his home basement) that was not truly part of the real mission; perhaps more so of a misguided & warped form of atonement/apology to his father, out of guilt he never got over. Adult Adam tells Doyle that when the angel told his father that young Fenton was a demon, since Dad couldn't take his own son, the duty of continuing on the mission was passed down to him.

Adam "destroyed" Fenton, and when he now touches Doyle we see the Agent killed his own mother and got away with it. Adam's visions, like that of his father's, show the true personalities of people who have perpetrated hideous crimes and gone unpunished. Doyle's name was on the list of demons to be destroyed, and as Adam frees himself of the cuffs, he throws Doyle into an open grave. The Agent tells Adam he will be recognized for having been seen at the FBI office, but Adam says it will be Fenton who will be sought out and blamed for Doyle's disappearance. Adam says God will protect him and then kills Doyle with the axe. Will Adam get away with this twist? Will the deceased Fenton be exposed? Is Adam cut out for law enforcement? Rather neglected but sophisticated, FRAILTY is an impressive & entertaining directorial debut for the late Bill Paxton, who also appears as Dad, with police procedural nods to THE USUAL SUSPECTS. The performance of both child actors who absolutely carry the movie are exceptional, especially in evoking sadness & pity. Upon first glance, Fenton and Adam's happy and quiet upbringing appears proper with nothing out of the ordinary. Mom died giving birth to Adam and Dad's strictness is initially not through any harsh discipline but as a father raising his boys to be honest, respectful, responsible, and decent. As young boys who are very close and both look out for each other, Fenton immediately calls bullshit on "the mission" and tells his younger brother that far from being a "chosen one," Dad is simply making everything up as he goes along.

But Adam is very quick to buy into what Dad puts forth as gospel because the most important thing for him is approval. His young mind equates the actions to that of superheroes, and his most worrying fear is of exclusion. He doesn't understand that Dad proclaiming "necessary protection" is nothing more than concealment of horrific activity, inspite of being right there with an eyeful of the terror taking place. Adam expresses disappointment in his big brother for not sharing the same commitment. If he was older, and wiser when Dad first introduced "God's plan" for them, and still held his positive conviction, he might even consider Fenton a traitor for not following blindly as he does -- which clearly puts Adam's collusion on full display, and ironically coincides with an episode of the claymation 'Davey and Goliath' he watches, in which a parallel lesson/cautionary tale in the program about brainwashing does not register. At that moment, Adam's obedience is not on par with any independent thought sinking in. And ultimately, Dad (who never relishes being an executioner) leaves us with questions to ponder: Was he really visited by a celestial avenging messenger? And is Otis the axe -- found in a barn bathed in sunbeams looking like golden rays shining down from heaven itself, as if meant to help point (or bludgeon) the eventual way to destiny... Are these really signs from God? Is this father really slaying demons masquerading as humans? Or is it all just a lie of bizarre and deranged behaviour brought on by delusions & insanity?

[Whenever anyone embarks on a quest, as a soldier of the Lord, to cleanse & purify mankind by attempting to vanquish all evil in the world, aren't they always a few cards short of a full deck? If God really does demand this type of thing, isn't he the sick one?]... Without question and no mistaking, Dad dearly loves his boys but the real abuse he inflicts from his paternal authority (which is not aggressive manhandling or physical beating) comes from his zealotry; a warped biblical sense of morality, loyalty and justification that unforgivably shatters their innocence by turning them from onlookers which then tragically ropes them into being contributors to the madness. [For another movie that similarly depicts the extremities of faith, check out 1991's THE RAPTURE]. One thing for certain is that FRAILTY is divisive. Its curveball-turn aside, plenty of detractors have grumped about ambiguity, and the louder objectors have called it both Christian-right propaganda, and New Testament vigilantism. [I'll say this: judgemental hyperbole, and negative criticisms notwithstanding, I don't believe the movie's intent (or Paxton's) was to subliminally or overtly spew any religious/ideological/political agenda whatsoever. Period. Why? Because too often such scathing accusations are just bitterly biased, exaggerated projections]. In total, FRAILTY is about cleverly planted clues that challenge you to pay attention to the transpiring darkness, and in turn make you examine key instances for their larger importance, and reconsider preconceptions once we are brought to conclusion. In this regard, the movie achieves this splendidly.