Stephanie (film)

Stephanie
Official poster
Directed by	Akiva Goldsman
Produced by	Jason Blum Ellen Goldsmith-Vein Adrienne Biddle Matthew Kaplan
Written by	Ben Collins Luke Piotrowski
Starring	Frank Grillo Anna Torv Shree Crooks
Music by	Nathan Whitehead
Cinematography	Antonio Riestra
Edited by	Wayne Wahrman Timothy Alverson
Production company	Blumhouse Productions Gotham Group
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	April 27, 2017 (2017-04-27) (Overlook) April 17, 2018 (2018-04-17)
Running time	86 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English

Stephanie is a 2017 American supernatural horror film directed by Akiva Goldsman, from a screenplay by Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski. It stars Frank Grillo, Anna Torv and Shree Cooks.

The film had its world premiere at the Overlook Film Festival on April 27, 2017. It was released through video on demand on April 17, 2018, by Universal Pictures.

Summary

Stephanie is a young girl who was abandoned by her parents in their home. With only a toy turtle to talk to, there is also a dark supernatural force watching over Stephanie. An ill-defined apocalyptic event is alluded to on various news broadcasts, but Stephanie channel-surfs past them to watch Despereaux, Equestria Girls and Friendship is Magic, so no detail is gleaned. It is revealed that Stephanie is keeping the moldering corpse of her brother, Paul, sleeping in his bed to occasionally yell at and physically abuse. Stephanie does various whimsical things such as eat candy and have tea parties with stuffed animals. Periodically, a shadowy figure will menace her, and then the scene will end with a jump scare of Stephanie waking up in her bed. Stephanie's unnamed parents eventually return and apologize for leaving her. They bury Paul's corpse in the yard and attempt to resume a normal life. We see the dad has a gun in his belt at all times. When the mom is undressing, we see large scars across her stomach bearing rings, like an octopus's tentacle. Later that night, Paul's corpse is catapulted through the attic window, causing great emotional distress to the parents, but leaving Stephanie unaffected. At breakfast the next morning, the dad asks her to speak about her memory the day they left. Stephanie recalls her and Paul carving pumpkins. Paul teases her and damages her pumpkin. Consequently, she breaks his neck with her telekinesis. The mom comes to investigate, and she is struck across the midsection. Stephanie's telekinesis takes the form of invisible, giant octopus tentacles.

The parents reveal there is no monster, and that the monster was Stephanie. Presumably, she was hallucinating the shadowy figure that has been harassing her until this point in the story. Her parents drug her and attempt to perform brain surgery on her to nullify her powers. Stephanie wakes up before they can begin and telekinetically destroys the lab and all their equipment, lightly wounding them both. The various news broadcasts explain the apocalyptic event is that murderous, telekinetic children like Stephanie have been appearing all over the world, and that there is no cure for their powers/murderous urges, and they must be killed. Stephanie acts as if nothing has happened the next morning. The parents poison some hot cocoa intended for her and the dad takes her for a walk across their estate. The dad explains his theory that a force is possessing Stephanie and the other children during their killing sprees. When in this state, Stephanie occasionally develops dark patches on her face, lending credence to this theory. Stephanie prepares to drink the cocoa, but her telekinesis autonomously knocks it out of her hand. She moves to attack the dad, and he shoots her several times, seemingly killing her. The dad returns to the mom and cries. Stephanie returns, unharmed. She forces her way into the house, tortures and kills both parents, and tells them they should've never come back. She picks up her stuffed turtle, telekinetically destroys the house, and walks outside, dragging her parent's corpses and leaving their bodies at Paul's grave. She then immediately drops and steps on the turtle upon entering a suburban area, presumably showing that she is now possessed by the force, and telekinetically destroys all the other houses in the neighborhood. As she does this, her shadow has long tentacles.

The movie then ends by zooming out to show the Earth, and there are many fires all over the earth, presumably showing that the other telekinetic children are behaving in a similar fashion and wreaking destruction in other places.

Cast

• Frank Grillo as Man/Dad^[2]
• Anna Torv as Woman/Mom^[3]
• Shree Crooks as Stephanie
• Jonah Beres as Paul
• Lausaundra Gibson as TV Reporter
• Samantha Smith as Doctor

Production

Deadline announced that Akiva Goldsman signed on to direct the film and that Blumhouse Productions, Gotham Group, Unbroken Pictures and Matt Kaplan with Chapter One Films would produce.^[4][5] Jason Blum with Blumhouse Productions had a deal with Universal so the film would go through them for distribution.^[3] The film was written by Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski.

Release

The film had its world premiere at the Overlook Film Festival on April 27, 2017.^[6] It was released through video on demand on April 17, 2018, before being released through DVD on May 1, 2018.^[7]

See also

• Mama (2013 film)

References

External links

• Stephanie on IMDb