Movie Review: The Stepmother

Actor Musician Marques Houston and Love and Hip Hop star Erica Mena starring in Tubi's original thriller film The Stepmother.

I saw this trailer on Marques's Instagram and captured my eye because this is the first time I have seen Erica Mena star in a film.

The film opens Erica‘s character with a blonde wig shouting at her man and then kills him. Then the next day in the morning she pours gasoline all over the house then lights it on fire. Such a Weird opening. Plus the fire didn’t even look real. We meet Marcus using his character Eddie and his wife April and their teenage son Scott who is about to go to college and they’re celebrating. Fast forward, Mom and Son have a conversation and then a dance battle until Mom suffers a heart attack. A year later, Mom dies leaving her husband Eddie and son behind. Now Erica’s character goes by the name Zoe. Half of the scenes for dumb, for example, when Scott was checking out Jessica, the girl next door walks across the street the girl turns around and waves high what?? Zoe’s hair, I’m sure it’s a wig but yikes it makes Cardi B do better. Zoe and Eddie’s encounter was corny as f. Scott and Jessica the girl next door have a cute little connection with each other. Then six months later, Zoe and Eddie get married Scott accepts it they have a mini wedding outside of the house. The wedding was meh. Then Rudy the mechanic tells Eddie about a psycho woman killer killing three men who look like Zoe he watched on the news which is obvious. Then Zoe kills Rudy (obviously!). Then we find out her real name is Elizabeth Carter, she was a victim of sexual assault assault and her teenage son watched her be assaulted after her son refused to watch to testify his guilt caused him to commit suicide. OK, I get it then she comes after her rapist for revenge and then kills her rapist. Then she continues on and on while their teenage sons survive. Scott searches for her name but when he searches is her name they use the red carpet picture could have used a different picture like a picture of her when she was at the hospital or a normal picture. In the almost end, she goes into a psychopath breakdown but it could’ve been better. Ok, I kind of feel sorry for Elizabeth but at the same time, it’s kind of creepy and evil way she acts. This film is giving me a weird and scary lifetime film movie-like type of film I’ll give Marques his credit for the story and its cinematography is all right but needs work. Everything else was tense including the ending. When they found the card from Zoe it said, "Until next time" and everyone else was stunned. The End! Wtf! Not much of a horrific ending. I don’t know if it means Zoey is still alive or if she’ll be back after him and Scott. Totally dumb in my opinion. Honestly, it could’ve added more scenes to make the story make sense for the film and I’m just saying from my opinion to make the movie better.

Director: Chris Stokes

Producer(s): Chris Stokes, Marques Houston

Writer(s): Chris Stokes, Marques Houston

Cast: Marques Houston, Erica Mena, Justin Sweat, Chrissy Stokes, Cynthia Bailey, Kida Burns, Dwight Boyce

Music: Immanuel Rich

Cinematography: Charlie Grey

Editor: Harvey White

Production Company: Footage Films

Year: 2022

Time: 1 hour and 38 minutes

#AD

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