Stepfather II: Make Room for Daddy * (1989, Terry O’Quinn, Meg Foster, Jonathan Brandis, Caroline Williams) – Classic Movie Review 13,414

The 1989 American horror thriller sequel Stepfather II: Make Room for Daddy brings back Terry O’Quinn as the psychopath daddy from the creepy 1987 horror thriller The Stepfather.

‘Tonight – Daddy’s Coming Home – To Slice Up More Than Just The Cake!‘

Director Jeff Burr’s 1989 American horror thriller sequel Stepfather II: Make Room for Daddy brings back Terry O’Quinn as the psychopath daddy from the creepy 1987 horror thriller The Stepfather. But this time it is merely feeble stuff, even with the added gore demanded by studio executives Harvey Weinstein and Bob Weinstein.

The psychotic stepfather Jerry Blake (Terry O’Quinn) escapes from an asylum, after killing his psychiatrist and a guard, and goes on the rampage again, apparently taking a leaf out of Michael (Halloween) Myers’s book.

Jerry Blake alters his appearance, assumes the identity of deceased publisher Gene F Clifford, poses as a psychiatrist, and travels to Palm Meadows, in the quiet outskirts of Los Angeles.

Bizarrely, he pretends to give marriage guidance in Palm Meadows, and lines up a wife for himself in his divorced neighbour Carol Grayland (Meg Foster) after he meets her and then leases a house across the street from her and her 13-year-old son Todd (Jonathan Brandis).

Terry O’Quinn’s performance deserves a reprise, but, without the original writer and director, the story does not. Director Burr’s handling does not stir up the right eerie mood and shocks, and gives a smirking, smug impression where the first episode was in deadly earnest.

It was released on November 3, 1989, and took only $1.5 million at the box office.

Studio executives Harvey Weinstein and Bob Weinstein complained about the lack of blood and demanded re-shoots. When Jeff Burr refused, Doug Campbell was hired to direct the reshoots. Burr recalled: ‘They cut a little bit of it out and they added some badly done blood effects.’

Stepfather III followed in 1992. And the 1987 original The Stepfather was remade as The Stepfather in 2009.

Stepfather II: Make Room for Daddy is directed by Jeff Burr, runs 93 minutes, is made by Part II Productions, Millimeter Films and ITC Entertainment, is released by Millimeter Films (US) and Warner Bros (UK), is written by John Auerbach, is shot by Jacek Laskus, is produced by William Burr and Darin Scott, and scored by Jim Manzie and Pat Regan.

Jonathan Brandis (April 13, 1976 – November 12, 2003)

Jonathan Brandis was found hanged in the hallway of his Los Angeles apartment on November 11, 2003, aged 27.

At age 13, Brandis had his first starring role as Bastian Bux in The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter, and played the young Stuttering Bill Denbrough in the 1990 TV miniseries Stephen King’s It.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,414

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