New on DVD: 'The Stepfather,' 'Snow White'

‘The stepfather’

Rated: R

Length: 89 minutes

Rating: **** 1⁄2

Poor Jerry Blake. All he wants is the perfect American family and somehow his family just keeps disappointing him. What does he do when a family disappoints? Well that’s why every perfect American kitchen needs a well-supplied knife drawer. As the original 1987 version of “The Stepfather” opens, Terry O’Quinn (now Locke on “Lost”) is just turning into Jerry Blake — shaving his beard clean, changing his hairstyle, replacing his goofy glasses with contact lenses — and washing off an awful lot of blood. As he walks down the steps and out the door to start his new life he passes photos of his family, bloody handprints on the wall and, just as he walks out the door, the ruined bodies of his wife and children.

The opening sets up the tension that pervades the next 85 minutes of “The Stepfather,” but it’s O’Quinn’s spooky and sometimes hilarious performance that makes the film one of the best horror films of the 1980s. O’Quinn is like a psychopathic Pat Boone spouting middle-America values in a too-sweet croon. With a new wife (Shelly Hack) and stepdaughter (Jill Schoelen) Blake must circumvent his stepdaughter’s attempts to find out just why her new stepdad creeps her out so much, and make sure he remembers which family and identity he’s currently enjoying.

There are elements that date “The Stepfather,” including some very cheesy soundtrack music and some TV-quality acting and dialogue by lesser characters. However, it’s also low on gore, never wallows in the now-fashionable torture, sports some honest-to-goodness suspense and has moments of lovably sick humor. Just after dispatching a meddler from Blake’s pre-Jerry life Blake calmly says: “Next time call before dropping by!”

A remake is due in theaters on Oct. 16 (with Dylan Walsh in the title role), but it’s hard to imagine it could be more fun than this.

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‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’

Rated: G

Length: 84 minutes

Rating: *****

“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” was not only the beginning of the Walt Disney company’s franchise of animated feature films, it remains one of the most beautiful animated films of all time. This edition of the 1937 classic digitally cleans up the original animation cels for a pristine version of the film. After years of watching computer animation, the detail and nuance of “Snow White’ appears stunning. The wicked Queen in her dungeon, the colors on the forest as the Huntsman attempts to fulfill the Queen’s request to kill Snow White and transformation of apple into a poison apple and the face in the Magic Mirror are some of the most beautiful scenes ever created. And, as for the story, despite musical numbers that might test smaller children’s patience, it still hits all the right buttons.

The “Diamond Edition” of the film includes both the standard DVD and Blu-Ray versions of the film, plus a second Blu-Ray disc filled with extra features.

© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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