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Scripted by prolific crime novelist Donald E. Westlake, from a story he fleshed out with Brian Garfield and Carolyn Lefcourt, and directed by Joseph Ruben, The Stepfather opens to enthusiastic reviews. Terry O’Quinn is menace perfect as a nondescript, deceptively urbane serial killer whose luck finally runs out when his grisly modus operandi - courting, marrying and then killing lonely, single mothers – is exposed by the daughter of his next intended victim. A taut, finely controlled exercise in Hitchcockian suspense expertly coalesced around Quinn’s bravura performance. Jill Schoelen and Shelley Hack co-star. The film’s huge success spawns two sequels.
