Stepfather 3

Since Terry O’Quinn declined to return for this third, made-for-TV installment, it opens with an overlong plastic surgery sequence to explain why our title character looks completely different. At no time in that sequence do we actually see his face, and once the movie settles into yet another idyllic suburban community, there seem to be some intriguing hints that maybe we can’t be sure which of this town’s painfully average dads is the one with serial murder on his résumé. Alas, the real Stepfather, whose new form possesses absolutely none of its predecessor’s charms, shows himself almost immediately, whistling his trademark “Camptown Races” at every available opportunity thereafter, and forcing the viewer to wonder why in the world this neighborhood’s hot single moms are all convinced they can’t live without him.