"Jerry Blake" (Terry O'Quinn) somehow managed to survive being shot and stabbed at the end of The Stepfather, and is trying to become part of a new family after escaping from an institution. Somehow he has managed to acquire a beautiful house in the suburbs and become a psychiatrist who is running an encounter group for women! (Where he gets the money for this is never explained.) He has set his sights on a neighbor, Carol (Meg Foster), a divorcee with a young son named Todd (Jonathan Brandis). Things are proceeding well for Jerry (under a new name, of course) but there is a hitch in the person of Carol's friend and the neighborhood mail carrier, Matty (Caroline Williams), who is suspicious of Jerry and learns something incriminating about him. But will she live long enough to tell Carol?
Stepfather II is as entertaining and engrossing as the original film, and also features fine performances, with O[Quinn generally handling things with aplomb. Meg Foster, who has weird if beautiful eyes, offers a somewhat strange performance that works very well with this movie. Brandis and Mitchell Laurance as Todd's father are also credible. Stepfather II features perhaps the wildest wedding sequence I've seen in a long time.
Verdict: Another grim if amusing flick starring O'Quinn. ***.
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