Rushes

HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS

George Henderson (John Lithgow), his wife Nancy (Melinda Dillon) and the kids, Sarah and Ernie, are out on a camping trip when -- Sasquatch! -- their car hits a large furry creature. Sure enough, it's Bigfoot, the legendary man- beast. And sure enough, Harry, as George dubs him, is one more cuddly pal from the Spielberg Toy Factory. He smiles and mewls winsomely, presents Sarah with a bouquet, and sleeps in the Hendersons' living room with Ernie, a teddy bear and the family dog. As Harry might say, Uggghhh! Director and Co-Author William Dear, who helmed a funny segment of Spielberg's Amazing Stories, here apes his mentor and libels him. He has taken the E.T. formula and created its reductio ad nauseam.

GARDENS OF STONE

Pity the boys who go to war; pity the men who can't. For Clell Hazard (James Caan), the Korean glory days are only medals and memories. Now it is 1968, and instead of preparing G.I.s for Viet Nam, he leads an honor guard at Arlington National Cemetery. All show, no go. But in Private First Class Jackie Willow (D.B. Sweeney), Clell can see a surrogate son and his best younger self. He knows Jackie will shine in war or go down in flames -- an epitaph for Icarus. Alas, Gardens of Stone goes down in smoke; unlike other, more delirious failures by its director, Francis Coppola, the new picture goes not far enough. This requiem for a young man lost to war sleepwalks like a family mourner; it plays taps to its own best intentions.

THE STEPFATHER

The all-American dad is a psychopathic murderer. In his suburban home, with his new wife (Shelley Hack) and stepdaughter (Jill Schoelen), Jerry Blake (Terry O'Quinn) exudes the righteous good cheer of another famous insurance salesman, Jim Anderson in Father Knows Best. He may even believe the myth he is peddling. But its weight crushes him, forces him to kill the thing he should love. By the end of this fine-handed thriller, the stairs leading from living room to bedroom are littered with bloody archetypes: mom at the bottom, stepdad at the top, daughter in between poised to destroy the black widower. Donald E. Westlake based his sleek script on the case of a New Jersey serial killer. Director Joseph Ruben brings his no-nonsense classicism to what could have been just another tabloid horror story. And Schoelen is the most appealing teen in recent movies. But the triumph is O'Quinn's. With his a- mite-too-wide smile, unctuous pieties and neatly calibrated spasms of rage, he creates a paradigm head of the postnuclear family: an evangelist of father love and blood lust.