a review of 继父

2021 CULT MOVIE CHALLENGE WEEK 35: MONSTERVISION WEEK Although this one absolutely hangs on Terry O'Quinn's convincingly psycho performance as the title character, I also appreciated Jill Schoelen as the teenage stepdaughter. I liked how the movie centers her POV in a way that makes her feelings about her weird new stepdad seem equally valid whether he's a deranged murderer or not. I do think that the movie makes a misstep around the third act in unnecessarily sexualizing Schoelen's character with a gratuitous nude shower scene, which seems to have been placed there for no other reason than guaranteeing an "R" rating for an otherwise fairly tame thriller. But all in all, I was pretty impressed with how well it managed to maintain the tension and ambiguity throughout.