The Stepfather

Friday 11th December 2009, 7:55AM GMT.

Thrillers about families in peril are two a penny.

Sadly, Nelson McCormick’s remake of a 1987 cult hit isn’t worth a single penny of your hard-earned money.

The Stepfather is a predictable yarn about a wayward teenager, who suspects the new man in his mother’s life is a psychopath.

Dylan Walsh plays the title character with barely concealed malice.

It’s laughable that he has eluded the police for so long.

Screenwriter JS Cardone feels the need to telegraph each step along the linear plot, contriving a meeting between man and boy in the basement so we’re primed for the setting of a subsequent showdown.

Supporting players happily sign their own death warrants by telling anyone who will listen, preferably the stepfather, that they know he is a charlatan and intend to expose him.

The subsequent murder rate in the sleepy corner of Oregon, where the film is set, must be a state record.

The film opens with David Harris (Dylan Walsh) calmly shaving off a shaggy beard, changing his coloured contact lenses and popping a slice of bread into the toaster as he listens to ‘Silent Night’ on the radio.

The camera pulls back to reveal the bodies of one woman and three children among the Christmas presents.

David heads for Oregon where he encounters divorcee Susan Harding (Sela Ward) in a grocery store and sweet talks his way into her affections.

She is smitten and introduces her new man to son Sean (Braeden Lemasters) and daughter Beth (Skyler Samuels).

Six months later, Susan’s troubled eldest boy, Michael (Penn Badgley), returns from military school to find a new man poised to walk his mother down the aisle.

Michael initially views his stepfather-to-be with suspicion but his girlfriend Kelly (Amber Heard) convinces him to give David a chance.

When the cat lady across the street recalls seeing someone rather like David on an edition of America’s Most Wanted, she takes an unfortunate tumble down the stairs.

‘Accidents happen.

Must have been her time…’ remarks David, and Michael senses terrible danger under his own roof.

The Stepfather panders unashamedly to a teen audience with copious shots of Heard walking around in her underwear or bikini, and Gossip Girl hunk Badgley emerging from the pool or shower.

Only the climactic rainstorm forces the characters to put on more than one layer of clothing.

Walsh shoots murderous glares at most of his co-stars while Ward is sleepwalks through a thankless supporting role as a mother, blinded to the truth by love.

McCormick fails to generate any suspense as Michael sneaks around, looking for clues.

Audiences will only be surprised if they fall asleep and are woken by one of the obligatory shocks, like a cat springing out of a darkened closet, accompanied by a loud burst of Charlie’s Clouser’s rumbling score.