STEPFATHER II

STEPFATHER 2 (aka Stepfather 2: Make Room for Daddy/1989). Director: Jeff Burr. 

"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. ***. 
 

TEN LITTLE INDIANS (1989)

Sarah Maur Thorp and Frank Stallone

TEN LITTLE INDIANS (1989). Director: Alan Birkinshaw. 

Harry Alan Towers had already produced two earlier versions of Agatha Christie's venerable story -- the notable 1965 version and the terrible 1974 version -- when he decided to trot it out a third time and the results are mediocre. In this version, which is faithful to the period, the assorted wrong-doers are invited on an African safari and wind up staying in a very isolated area -- a rope bridge over a chasm is destroyed -- inside large tents. The premise still casts a certain creepy spell, but otherwise this is not very memorable.

The cast of Ten Little Indians 

There are some notable performers in the cast, however: Donald Pleasence [Circus of Horrors] as the judge; Herbert Lom  of Asylum as the general (he played Dr. Armstrong in the 1974 version); Sarah Maur Thorp as Vera; and Warren Berlinger, a pleasant surprise as Mr. Blore. Brenda Vaccaro gives the same fussy performance as she did in her later years. I'm honestly not certain if Frank Stallone can even be considered a genuine actor, so his choice as the male lead is rather strange. One of the characters acknowledges a lesbian affair which was not in the novel but was picked up for a British TV mini-series many years later. The lousy score for the movie only makes matters worse. 

Verdict: Stick with the 1965 version or And Then There Were None. **1/4.