Rarely has a sequel followed its predecessor’s exact template like Stepfather 2: Make Room for Daddy, a thoroughly imitative follow-up in which Terry O’Quinn’s serial family-killer Jerry Blake escapes mental-hospital imprisonment – after a lengthy intro inside the facility that affords no further insight into his psyche – and then poses as a suburban psychiatrist and sets about trying to marry another single mother, Carol (Meg Foster). Predictably, these efforts to attain domestic bliss are stymied by interference from Carol’s ex-husband (Mitchell Laurence) and her best friend Matty (Caroline Williams), though Jerry’s real problems are his continued sexual hang-ups – during one therapy session, he practically vomits upon hearing an oral sex anecdote – and all-around lunacy. Working from John Auerbach’s unoriginal script, director Jeff Burr stages Jerry’s workshop freakouts and backyard-cookout wedding announcement in a manner so similar to those same moments from The Stepfather that at times it’s hard to tell the two films apart. What’s not hard to discern, however, are the raft of key details that the film carelessly skims over in the interest of furthering its story, from escaped-inmate Jerry’s ability to rent a house and set up a private practice, to his cavalier attitude toward witnesses and forensic evidence when committing murder, to Carol’s pathological disinterest in learning anything about her fiancé’s past. Token gestures that posit Jerry as a manifestation of Reagan-era family values-run-amok – as when he criticizes a victim’s choice of car by stating “You should have bought American!” – aren’t enough to invigorate this lifeless retread, whose sole distinction may be its status as the only horror film with a plot that hinges on the song “Camptown Races.”
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