This direct-to-video remake of the 1987 film gained pretty negative reviews almost everywhere, but I don't think it's that bad: sure, it's very predictable and it kinda lacks the tension of the original, but it's far better than many other thriller/horror flicks out there. The acting is on point, the technical direction is good and the story flows well resulting to be quite entertaining. Also, the characters are not so obvious: when Dylan Walsh/David snaps while fumbling with knives, he mentions that "boys need to be educated with hits and violence" and he may be alluding to his own twisted education, the origin of his madness. The only true turnoff is the ending: repeating the same scenario of the opening was not a smart move. After all, folks... it's a direct-to-video, one must not expect too much from it.

Okay, so I decided to watch the original 1987 version and then check out the 2009 version and compare the two. One thing definitely comes off right away: The Stepfather is just a douchebag See, the part of the movie that I should be able to sit through the most is The Stepfather. He is supposed to be creepy but in a way that is trying to come off as genuine to the audience so that we can see how the Mom and other children fall for him--and why one of the children is suspicious. This is the gaping hole in the film that never closes right. We never see him being sociable so that we can say "Wow, he's charming even for a homicidal maniac" What's worse is that an hour into the film and I was just checking the time thinking "If I don't care about him or like him this film won't work" And it doesn't So Michael's girlfriend (of the suspicious kid) shows a lot of skin and it's a bore. I mean, yeah for adolescents or old men with beer guts, it might stand up and salute but otherwise, it's just the same old adolescent girl showing skin that we probably won't care about in 10 years time The Mom. She's too trusting knowing that his past is untraceable and she doesn't seem to mind. She's just vapid until the end and even then you don't care about her character because she like the 2 children are forgettable...but she's in more scenes but still I just remember not caring for her much The fact that we see a lot of Michael and his suspicions while it never really focuses a lot on the interplay between him and The Stepfather...it seems forced at times which it's supposed to but it doesn't even gel right when it's forced I don't even remember the names of the little kids, as far as I'm concerned they wasted money on that part of the budget because those two other kids are so forgettable. As with most remakes, they should've left well enough alone but Hollywood is always looking for another cash cow This one sucked...terribly

I never saw the original, but my summary is based on other reviews found here. Reasonably entertaining, but too unrealistic because:1) The mother is of normal or superior intelligence except when it's time to add two and two. Her neighbor tells her the guy looks like someone on America's Most Wanted, and she doesn't even check it out when it only takes a few clicks of the mouse.1a) Even when the neighbor dies shortly after advising her of the above, the mother still suspects nothing. 1b) Even when she learns the guy quit the job with his sister as soon as she wanted his social security number and other info, she's still not suspicious.1c) In real life, the mother would kick the guy out of the house and tell him to get lost after finding out what he did to her younger son. Instead, she treats it like a minor incident hardly worth mentioning.2) Same problem with girlfriend. Smart enough to go to college but, aside from all the other suspicions the son relayed to her, when he explains how the guy could not have known the neighbor fell down the stairs and broke her neck, because all the mailman told him was that the neighbor had an accident, she just blows it off instead of considering that suspicious. 3) How did the guy get into the mother's email? He may be living with her but it seems unlikely she would have volunteered the password to her email.4) Nobody in real life could still function normally after being stabbed in the neck with a large piece of glass.5) Even though his suspicions continued to increase as time went by, the son never once goes to the police, when all he would have had to do is ask them to check out if the guy was the one on America's Most Wanted. 6) The concluding scene is a plot device that was apparently popularized by Silence of the Lambs. But here it makes no sense. The guy would be dead or in jail awaiting trial, not free to move to another town and assume yet another anonymous identity.7) I'm not sure anything here is actually a spoiler alert. 8) Modernized thrillers usually make the story more believable. If that was the intent here, it failed miserably. Perhaps the most egregious scene is the one where the sister is about to head for the airport when she discovers the wind blew a table umbrella into her pool (or was tossed there by the killer). Instead of just leaving it in the pool until she returns from her trip, she wastes precious time trying to retrieve the umbrella from the pool while a lightning storm is in progress - more important than making sure she doesn't miss her flight or get electrocuted, I guess. But this idiocy had to be introduced to have a plausible scenario for the guy to be able to murder her quickly without any witnesses. A close second is the fact the killer doesn't turn off the ringer on the murdered ex-husband's cellphone, which he has to keep using to send and receive text messages making it appear the son's father is still alive and still communicating. And a close third is the fact that the mother allows the new guy to keep the basement door locked when it's her house - not his.9) That being said, reasonably entertaining when you're in the mood to just flake out and take a vacation from your mind. But if you're chomping at the bit to watch a great movie, better save this one for another time.

Returning home from military school, a teen discovers his mom's new boyfriend will go to extreme lengths to keep a psychotic image of the perfect family together, and that he and his family are in big trouble when he fears that he's going on another rampage.This here turned out to be quite the bland and unimpressive thriller. Most of the problems here stem from the fact that this whole film is based on set-up rather than horror actions, which just drags this one out to ludicrous lengths in order to sell the overall storyline. Since there's a large portion of time spent on the family used to him while he not only has to adjust to life back home again but also to her new man as well, which takes forever to get going in the first half the film really seems quite bland and overall a struggle. Once it gets to the introduction of the alternate identity and his past there's a rather big stumbling block in how badly this stretches out his secret from them by making his instability so obvious with the different secrets and explosive outbursts attempting to hold everything back from getting out is a lot of work needed trying to build something that doesn't really need as much to accomplish this rather simplistic turn. There's nothing here that warrants stretching out the investigation to the point it gets to here where it has him coming up with something that legitimately should've exposed him only to have it shot down unnecessarily on the most utterly flimsy points possible which feels quite lame and clearly screams being there to pad out the running time here when this one should've just let it out with the actual realization of his attitude and truth for everything which is quite a big struggle to understand what's going on. This here really holds back the slasher elements down to the point where instead the thriller aspect here is kept up to such a dominant angle that there's very little of the film that holds it's interest at all which keeps this one so dragged-out holds this down quite readily. Capped off with a series of lame, utterly bloodless and unnaturally tame series of kills and a lack of sex-appeal despite plenty of opportunity featuring this intention which really lowers this one even further, these here keep this down to the point of not really making the positives mean anything. The few positives here really stem from the film's final half which is when this one gets going with the stalking and battling him off. There's some fun with the final clue needed to fully piece the puzzle together and leading into the big chase and stalking around the house up into the attic which is admittedly creepy and gets enough action and energy going that it comes off quite nicely even with the clichéd resolution. As well, though it takes way too long to unfold it features a strong outline of how he gets found out, as the different methods built up to get him out are quite good in principle that gives this a little extra. Still, the other flaws here hold this one back considerably.Rated PG-13: Violence, Language and themes of child violence.