60
While O'Quinn is effectively scary, one is left longing for Hitchcock's dark, daring wit and disturbingly amoral insights.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
100
The Stepfather is a nearly perfect work of popular entertainment. A thriller about a psychopathic killer, it is absolutely terrifying. At the same time it is a highly personal work, the expression of a gifted individual. [27 Feb 1987, p.A]
80
It's a terrific, disquietingly entertaining little film -- a piece of genuine Gothic Americana.
75
ReelViews by James Berardinelli
The Stepfather doesn’t hold up quite as well as it did during the late 1980s (some of the film’s technical aspects are dated) but it still generates tension and suspense and O’Quinn’s performance has lost none of its power.
50
The New York Times by Janet Maslin
The Stepfather is too often disappointingly thin.
75
This 1987 film doesn't quite leave its slasher antecedents behind, but the styling is never less than assured, and Ruben knows how to put bland, unruffled surfaces to sinister Hitchcockian uses.
63
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
The Stepfather has one wonderful element: Terry O'Quinn's performance.
75
Appreciating what’s special about The Stepfather involves accepting—or at least tolerating—some clunky moments.