There’s little doubt a mention in B-Movie Cult Classics Unearthed Watching Late-Night HBO in College™, the CFS’s ongoing examination of eminently watchable if sometimes mediocre (or flat-out bad) cinematic curiosities, is coveted by filmmakers beyond all else, Oscar/Palme d’Or be damned.

Who among our finest directors past and present wouldn’t love to be mentioned in the same breath as Mike “The Wraith” Marvin, Savage Steve “One Crazy Summer” Holland and Rowdy “Roadhouse” Herrington?

Yet there is one director who, like the Burj Kalifa or Donald Trump’s coiffure in a gentle breeze, rises to such epic creative heights as to force the Marvins, Hollands and Herringtons of the film world to take a knee and kiss his ring.

I’m talking, of course, about Joseph Ruben, the auteur whose filmography is so overflowing with b-movie classics that I’ll be featuring three—count ’em, three—in what follows!

Strap in.

The Stepfather (1987)

The name Terry O’Quinn sound familiar? He’s the guy best known for playing paraplegic/not paraplegic/dead/not dead John Locke in the unbelievably confusing TV series Lost (2004-2010), a role that led to a 2007 Emmy Award® for Outstanding Supporting Actor.

Like so many journeyman actors, O’Quinn spent the early 1980s scrambling for work, happy to take any supporting role that came over the transom. Then, in 1987, his breakthrough: the lead in The Stepfather, a role he could really sink his teeth into. And sink he does.

O’Quinn plays Henry Morrison, an everyman living in an idyllic house on a leafy suburban street in the Pacific Northwest. We first meet the bespectacled and bearded Morrison staring at his bloodied(?) face in a bathroom mirror.

He proceeds to shower, shave, throw in some contacts, slip on a handsome blazer/slacks ensemble (complete with 80s sweater vest) and, after tidying up some toys on the landing, make his way down to the first floor. As he descends, the camera catches a bloodied palm print on the wall.  As he reaches the bottom of the staircase the shot goes wide to reveal his entire family massacred in the family room. Unperturbed, Henry rights a chair and heads out the front door for what we’ll soon discover is a new life.

Using a series of brilliantly wordless and, yes, mundane shots (until the bodies, of course), Ruben slyly introduces us to a character whose unremarkable surface hides a savagely violent core. It seems Henry has slightly unrealistic expectations regarding marriage and family. Once the slightest crack appears in either, he pulls up stakes, killing the offending parties and assuming a new identity. Until his quest for familial perfection is achieved, he’ll keep seeking out new divorcees/widows to enact his unattainable fantasy.

Cut to a year later. Henry is now Jerry Blake and—lo!—once again has it all:  a doting new wife, Susan, a somewhat troubled 16-year-old step-daughter, Stephanie, a scruffy dog, a fine upper-middle-class home and, most therapeutically, a basement workshop in which to spend hours constructing a birdhouse in the image of a perfect little suburban dwelling.

Needless to say, it’s only a matter of time before Steph’s 80s teen attitude gonna toss a match on that loafer-wearing, hammer-wielding puddle of gasoline!

I’ll tell you no more. Well, other than to consider placing your hands in front of your eyes when Jerry grabs a 2×4 to dispatch his daughter’s snooping shrink.

While it could’ve been slasher dross, The Stepfather earns its cult-classic bonafides via a clever, subtext-rich script, solid direction by Mr. Ruben and an unhinged performance for the ages by O’Quinn. (Check out the scene where he talks (hisses?) to himself in the basement!)

Cult-o-Meter™ (10-pt. scale)

• 8.5/10 (General Quality Rating)
• 10/10 (Enhanced Rating When Viewed Post-Midnight and just back from 25¢ Beer Nite)

True Believer (1989)

James Woods, he of undeniable talent and annoying Tweets, stars as Eddie Dodd, a once-revered civil rights lawyer (he’s got a ponytail, works in Greenwich Village and smokes weed for heavens sake!) who now peddles his talents defending drug scum. Which comes as a bit of a letdown to Dodd’s spanking-new associate, the idealistic (he’s wears tortoise-shell glasses for heavens sake!) Roger Baron, played by a very fresh-faced Robert Downey Jr., who’s turned down lucrative corporate offers to help his hero save the world.

But then an elderly Korean woman swings by their office to plead with Dodd to take the case of her son, who’s been imprisoned for eight years for a murder (she contends) he didn’t commit, a crime we see play out at the very beginning of the film.

Dodd takes the case, of course, but soon finds himself the target of American Nazis and shady government officials. All of which helps him—you guessed it!—rediscover his passion for justice and the rule of law. That is, if he can survive the trial!

Sounds lame, I know. But actually it’s pretty engrossing. Not only is the acting uniformly fine, but Ruben, with an assist by his crack cinematographer, John Lindley, really ups his visual game, producing some memorable set pieces, including one lengthy Steadicam shot in which Woods and Downey Jr., the former predator, the latter prey, reenact the murder on the same crowded street as it took place eight years earlier, a stalking that culminates in quick cut to the actual gun discharging in place of the pretend headshot.

Cult-o-Meter™ (10-pt. scale)

• 8.5/10 (General Quality Rating)
• 9.0/10 (Enhanced Rating When Viewed Post-Midnight and just back from 25¢ Beer Nite)

Sleeping with the Enemy (1991)

Ruben, now recognized as an auteur of solid-if-low-budget-B+-level-talent thrillers, finally cracks the big time by nabbing the celebutante du jour, Julia Roberts, hot off her Oscar-nominated performance in Steel Magnolias and, more importantly, the blockbuster Pretty Woman.

Roberts plays Laura Burney, a gal who has it all: a big, beautiful house on The Cape and, even better, a dashing husband, Martin, played by Irish stud, Patrick Bergen, he of Mountains of the Moon (a much better movie and one you should seek out.)

Problem is, obsessive-compulsive Patrick is also a mentally and physically abusive jerk, which certainly takes the bloom off all those materialistic roses he showers her with after one of his frequent assaults.

Despite Laura’s inability to swim, the uber-tool Martin insists on an annual sailboat ride, which, in this year’s version, ends in tragedy when she falls off and drowns in a sudden gale.

Or did she?

In a nicely edited sequence, we see that Laura has secretly been receiving swimming lessons at the local Y and her “drowning” was planned to escape her cruel husband. Thus, she moves to Iowa and settles into a new name/new life, one that includes Ben Woodward (Kevin Anderson), a man with such voluminous hair one could be forgiven for mistaking him for Lon Chaney Jr. in 1941’s The Wolf Man.

Of course, it’s not long before the creep Martin discovers the ruse, the lesson to all fleeing women being: don’t try to flush your ring in the toilet because it may not go all the way down.

What happens next you’ll need to discover on your own. However, if you’re pressed for time, consider the first two Ruben films described because they’re way better than this pretty lame thriller.

Cult-o-Meter™ (10-pt. scale)

• 4.5/10 (General Quality Rating)
• 5.0/10 (Enhanced Rating When Viewed Post-Midnight and just back from 25¢ Beer Nite)