utters "I love you" and tumbles down the stairs. Stephanie later cuts down a birdhouse she and Jerry had built during the time they bonded. Cast Production Development The film was inspired by the crimes of John List. Lefcourt found a newspaper article about how List killed his own family and brought it to Garfield. Westlake collaborated with them to write the story and based his screenplay on that. Filming and post-production Filming started on October 16, 1985 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and by July 1986 the film was in post-production searching for a distributor company. Eventually The Stepfather gained a deal with New Century Vista Film Corporation. Music Soundtrack "Run Between the Raindrops" – Pat Benatar "Sleeping Beauty" – Divinyls "I Want You" – Patrick Moraz and John McBurnie "Gwine to Rune All Night (De Camptown Races)" – Stephen Foster Release Home media The film was released on DVD for the first time in North America by Shout! Factory on October 13, 2009. Shout! Factory released the Blu-ray version of the film on June 15, 2010. Reception Box office The Stepfather was initially marketed as a psychological thriller. When audiences did not respond to this as well as New Century would have liked, they marketed it as a slasher film. The film was theatrically released in the United States on January 23, 1987. During its opening weekend, The Stepfather grossed $260,587 in 105 theatres. Ultimately playing in 148 theatres, it earned a total US gross of $2.5 million. Critical response The Stepfather has an 89% approval rating from Rotten Tomatoes and an average rating of 7/10 out of 35 reviews. Film critic Roger Ebert with the Chicago Sun-Times gave the movie 2.5 stars out of 4 and wrote, "Violence itself seems to sell at the box office, even when it's divorced from any context. Maybe that's what the filmmakers were thinking. What often happens, though, is that in an otherwise flawed film there are a couple of things that are wonderful. The Stepfather has one wonderful element: Terry O'Quinn's performance." Terry O'Quinn was nominated for both a Saturn and an Independent Spirit Award. O'Quinn came in third place in the voting for the 1987 National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor. Director Ruben was honored with the Critics Award at the 1988 Cognac Festival. The film was nominated for the International Fantasy Film Award for Best