Wednesday, May 28, 2014

The Stepmother (1972) - Brief Review


File The Stepmother under "I watch it so you don't have to." What a waste of time.

Frank arrives home and, in a jealous fit, kills a man that he believes has slept with his wife Margo. The next day, he's tortured by his conscience but he tries to go out and play with his swinging 70s middle-aged friends on the beach. Among them is Larry Linville, who would shortly after go on to play Frank Burns in the MASH TV series. A cop (working out of an office that looks like someone's apartment bedroom) decides to investigate and thinks Frank did it, but he lacks the evidence. Eventually, Frank also accidentally knocks Larry Linville off a roof and is anguished some more. Then the movie does a weird turn as Frank's son arrives and Margo, the boy's stepmother, decides to seduce the teenager. Frank finds out but realizes he lacks the moral high ground to be angry at his son since he killed a man. So Frank decides to confess to the police, only the police show up and shoot Frank instead.

This movie, from old drive-in purveyor Crown International Pictures, is awkward and cheap from start to finish. Perhaps no surprise that it's the debut film of Z-list director Howard Avedis. A couple of the more experienced actors are at least professional (even if they seem to be struggling without direction), but some of the actors are downright awful. This honestly feels like someone was making a cheap student film about a murder story and someone got a hold of it and decided to draw it out and throw in some exploitable drive-in elements (the film is pretty tame, but the MILF-Stepson angle surely was prurient enough to get a few people to show up). It's a boring mess with really nothing about it that can be recommended.

Screened on Amazon Prime Instant.


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