I might need to tread lightly this week, my dear Enemaniacs.

Welcome to this week’s B-Movie Enema. The featured movie for this review is the 1975 version of The Stepford Wives. The film was based on a novel of the same name by author Ira Levin. Levin is actually quite the author. All but a couple of his novels were adapted into fairly large Hollywood productions. Aside from The Stepford Wives, which was adapted twice with this version having a trio of TV movie sequels, he was also the author of Rosemary’s Baby, The Boys from Brazil, Sliver, and A Kiss Before Dying (this was also adapted into two different films). On top of that, Levin was also a playwright. Several of those plays were also adapted into films as well.

The original 1972 novel of The Stepford Wives is classified as a satirical horror novel. In fact, it was an early example of “feminist horror”. Which, today, seems weird. I mean, in that era, I guess it would have to be a dude writing a feminist something. Today, it might not quite fly. Generally, the novel seemed to go over fairly well, though. It had some themes it wanted to explore.

The first theme it explored was how men would react to the rise of feminism at that time. More accurately, the impotent fears of men even trying to recognize women as whole people. Instead, these characters would just rather replace their wives with obedient robots than give them an ounce of legitimacy. Second, connected to the first, the novel explored the concept of consent. Gosh, that’s something that is still important 50+ years later. The concept of turning their wives into robots, and submissive ones at that, was that the men of Stepford need not worry about whether or not their wives had a headache that night, not feeling well, or simply saying “no” to their husbands’ advances. Thirdly, the novel explored the role women had in the nuclear family and in the home. As we’ll find out in the movie, each of the women turned into Stepford wives had other interests that conflicted with the concept of the traditional role of a woman in the household.

By 1975, the time was ripe for The Stepford Wives to be adapted into a film. The 70s were full of new types of roles for women and the concept of feminism in general was rooted and spreading. The book was bought and adapted by William Goldman. Goldman, himself, was a novelist having written the books for The Marathon Man and The Princess Bride. He also wrote the screenplay for Magic starring Anthony Hopkins and Ann-Margaret. Prior to The Stepford Wives, he won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Just after The Stepford Wives, he won his second Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for All the President’s Men. Goldman has a hell of a filmography.

Now, to direct The Stepford Wives, originally, producer Edgar Scherick wanted Brian De Palma, but Goldman vetoed that. Instead, Scherick recruited Bryan Forbes. Forbes was also an actor earlier in his life and wrote screenplays. His last screenplay was for 1992’s Chaplin which he co-wrote with William Goldman. Forbes was once named not simply a renaissance man, but “one of the most important figures in the British film industry”. Not too bad.

There is a trio of ladies of note in this movie. First, in a supporting role, we have Tina Louise as Charmaine. Louise is best known for being the movie starlet redhead bombshell Ginger on Gilligan’s Island. A recognizable face of B-Movie Enema’s past is Paula Prentiss. She played the wife of Richard Benjamin in 1981’s dreadful Saturday the 14th. She was not originally cast in this film. Instead, her role as Bobbie Markowe was given to Joanna Cassidy, but she was fired and Prentiss came in. Finally, our leading lady, playing Joanna Eberhart, is Katharine Ross. Ross is best known for her massively acclaimed roles in The Graduate and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the former garnering her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. Ross has been married to Sam Elliott for nearly 40 years.

Here’s where I need to admit something. I have a very specific reason for doing this movie on the blog. It’s not that I necessarily think this is a “bad” movie, though it’s said that many feminists of the time jeered the movie quite heavily. I actually want to cover the 2004 remake that stars Nicole Kidman because that movie is absolute shit. I thought since I would want to watch this movie to compare and contrast, I might as well go ahead and cover it. So, there you have it – my ulterior motive, if you will. With that admission, I think we need to dive into this 1975 classic.

Our movie opens with Joanna Eberhart (Ross) quietly pondering the end of her city life. The apartment they had in what I assume is New York City, is empty and the Eberharts are headed out to the serene town life of Stepford. There’s a brief irritation between husband Walter and wife Joanna. He basically makes it sound like she forgot something or left something behind and that’s potentially causing them to be late departing.

They leave and it’s setting the whole tone right here. They are leaving the dirty and gross city for the more pastoral look of a more simple life. As they come into Stepford, this isn’t a concrete jungle. It’s green fields and horses and inquisitive-looking local cops watching these outsiders coming in. They arrive at their new home and it’s a huge house. Later, the movers bring the rest of the Eberharts’ stuff.

As Walter feeds the dog outside, Carol Van Sant, a neighbor from across the street, brings the new folks in town a casserole. Carol is kind of a weirdo. She talks without much excitement in her voice, she looks uncomfortable, and she isn’t much interested in meeting Joanna. She just walks away through an open field. It’s not walking to the house across the street. No, Walter is out back. So where Carol is going seems to be kind of nowhere.

Later, Carol’s husband, Ted, is getting the mail while Walter is walking the dog. Walter comments that Carol looks as good as she cooks. Ted just gives a knowing smile and goes back to the house. The next day, the Eberhart kids (one of which is played by a young Mary Stuart Masterson), get on the bus for school and are met with mostly stares and silence. Don’t you just love being the new person in town? Everyone is so willing to talk to you!

As Walter is off doing his lawyerin’ job and the kids are at school, Joanna sees Carol Van Sant outside pruning the trees. She thinks this will be an excellent opportunity to return Carol’s casserole dish and get to know her. She sees Ted walk up behind Carol and basically grope her and almost inspect her by opening the top of her shirt and looking down it. They kiss and Carol goes inside. That night, Joanna and Walter talk about what she saw.

Considering it’s a weekday, and it’s before noon but after the kids went to school and Walter went to work, she assumes it was Mr. Van Sant. However, what bothers her the most is just how, out in the open, the man approached the woman (wife or not) and just grabbed her boobs. Walter, while doing the dishes asks how he did it and wants to try it out on his wife. She brings up the fact that, since moving to Stepford, he’s been rather randy. He said he’d like to christen each room before paying the mortgage off. She just wants him to finish the dishes.

There was an earlier scene that also dealt with the Van Sants across the street, though a little more indirectly. The night before, after finishing Carol’s casserole, Joanna questioned why they had to move out here in the middle of nowhere. She prefers the city life. He says that his pay is better, they have more room, it’s safer, and she could set up a dark room for her own pursuits in photography. He then asked her if she’s ever made it in front of an actual fire in a fireplace. Her only response is that she hadn’t with him. There was no indication they actually went through with anything. The scene ended shortly thereafter so you could maybe assume they did make love in front of the fireplace, but we’ve not once actually seen Joanna be much more than practical and composed. There seems to be no real indication that she has a sex drive anywhere near Walter’s. Even when seeing what happened across the street, she doesn’t think of it as a display of open affection or sexual chemistry. Instead, she focuses on the fact that Carol seemed to just accept being touched. I think, at least that’s as far as I can say in these early stages of the movie, it’s meant to either portray Joanna as repressed OR portray her coldly in a way that some men think of modern women and, more accurately, feminists.

There’s a tad bit of a problem, though… It flirts with the concept that Joanna is a prude and that makes her a little less than likable.

However, some redemption is on the way when we find out a little bit more about the Eberharts’ move to Stepford. Walter talks about his day and how he met some of the various movers and shakers around the town. When he starts talking about joining the town’s association, which is exclusively for men, that’s when Joanna snaps a bit. He asked her about moving to Stepford, but only after he had already basically begun looking for a place for them to live. He asked her what she thought about the house, but only after he had already put money down on buying it. He talks about this men’s association only because he’s already joined it. Walter seems to be making a lot of fairly large decisions lately without Joanna. That is clearly putting something of a strain on the relationship between these two.

The next day, at the grocery store, a minor fender bender turns into a huge problem. After getting her groceries loaded into the car, another car backs into Carol Van Sant’s car. It’s a minor thing. Surprising, sure, but not a big deal. Carol even says as much. However, the bag boy who loaded the car and was helping direct traffic so an accident wouldn’t happen (a really weird thing I will comment on in a moment) freaks out and keeps saying it wasn’t his fault and it was just one of those innocent accidents. The store manager calls for an ambulance and it seems like a far bigger deal than it should be. Carol does go into a repetitive fit talking about her head. After that ambulance picks up and drives off with Carol, Joanne realizes the ambulance went the opposite direction from the hospital.

Let’s talk about that whole parking lot scenario. There are MULTIPLE bag boys that work at the Stepford grocery store. They direct traffic to prevent cars from backing into each other and cars driving down the lanes from running into cars backing out of spots. In what world does this happen? Were parking lots a new thing in 1975? Did these people not know how to look behind them for cars coming and creep out of spots to see better? Is it a commentary on women drivers?

Oh…

Late that night, Joanna finds Walter sitting alone in a room drinking. He went to the men’s association initiation thing. He says it wasn’t a fraternity. It’s not an initiation. They just showed him around and asked him if he wanted to join and he agreed. Clearly, he’s not doing well, though. He claims everything is fine, but she knows better. It actually also looks like at any moment, a tear is going to roll out of his eye. He tries to tell her that he might have screwed things up with this move, but he really does love her. She convinces him to come to bed.

After the Stepford newspaper gets out with an interview about Joanna being new to town and moving there from New York City, Joanna meets Bobbie Markowe, another recent transplant from a more urban location. Bobbie is outgoing and has a big personality. Because she shoots straight, Joanna takes an instant liking to her. Bobbie’s husband is also in the men’s association. She figures they just sit around, watch dirty movies, and reminisce about the “good old days” and that sort of stuff. She does think it’s creepy, though. It’s an every night thing for her husband. She also finds it odd that every house is meticulous but there is no such thing as a maid in town. All the wives, except for her and Joanna, seem to only care about keeping a clean house and a well-kept exterior.

Later, while Joanna works in her darkroom on pictures she shot earlier in the day, she gets a call from Walter at the men’s association. He asks if it’s okay if some of the guys come over to see their house. She agrees and, as he shows them around, the head of the men’s association, Dale “Diz” Coba, introduces himself to Joanna. He says that he’s called Diz because he used to work at Disney. She thinks he’s full of shit because he doesn’t seem like the type of person who wants to make others happy.

The men are all on the planning committee. They begin to talk about what events they should do. They do let Joanna sit in, but when she agrees to the idea that a “barn dance” would be fun, they kind of ignore her. It’s not long before no one is speaking to her. In fact, there is only one guy who is giving any attention to Joanna – a guy who keeps drawing her face and features over and over all night long. That guy is a somewhat famous artist of women that Joanna grew up admiring. She’s flattered by the drawing he did of her.

After the meeting, Walter makes a comment saying he thinks the guys on that committee are pretty swell. Joanna disagrees. In fact, she thinks that aside from the kind and sweet artist, Ike Mazzard, the rest of them were bores. Actually, she refers to them as dummies. She especially found Diz to be quite the snooze. Walter says he just so happens to have a Ph.D. She’s unimpressed. She says that he would never have spent a single moment in a room with anyone like these dildos in New York.

Speaking of Diz, he’s throwing a big party for just about everyone in town. Joanna basically just sticks to Bobbie. The two of them don’t really seem to look like they fit in quite like the rest of the people at the party. Bobbie comments on the food that’s being served. It’s too perfect. Joanna doesn’t quite understand why she doesn’t like it. It is all perfect. This is so scenic and the food looks great and everyone is happy. Why doesn’t she like it? It’s because it smacks of being fake. Everything is a facade and it doesn’t fit her personality or what she’s used to.

Carol begins to get weird. At first, she says that she must get Joanna and Bobbie a drink because they don’t have one, and then… just kind of walks off. Later, she’s eating hor d’oeuvres and begins walking up to each individual person and says that she will just die if she doesn’t get the recipe. She says it in the exact same way to each person she approaches. Diz and her husband, Ted, immediately realize something’s wrong. Later, she tells Joanna and Bobbie that the whole reason why she and Ted moved to Stepford was because she has a drinking problem. Joanna thinks the men made Carol come over and apologize to the two new women in town so they don’t have the wrong impression.

Joanna reveals to Bobbie her deep, dark secret…

She has a spectacular midriff… DUN DUN DUNNNNN! Er… I mean she messed around with that Women’s Lib thing in New York. DUN DUN DUNNNNNN! She wants to start up a little women’s group in Stepford. After Carol’s pathetic apology that wasn’t needed anyway, and the insinuation that the men suggested she do that, it’s time to give this town an enema and start injecting some good ol’ fashioned east coast liberal elite feminism up in this piece.

They meet with the various women in town, and they get flat refused by every single one of them. Each one gives a stranger excuse for not wanting to join the group. First, it’s kids and not having much time. Next, it’s that they simply have no interest in being in a group for women. After that, being outside looking at flowers counts as being “out”. The next woman to talk to is busy having sex and saying complimentary things to her husband.

After striking out all over town, they finally get someone who wants to hear what they have to say – Charmaine Wimperis (Tina Louise). Charmaine arrived two months ago. She used to play tennis with other women in the town. Eventually, they all stopped coming. She doesn’t understand why. She is kind of glad that her husband is part of the men’s group because she likes him not being around at night. All that said, she would be interested in joining meetings with Bobbie and Joanna if they started something up.

Something weird happens after this. One of the guys from the planning committee that is friends with Walter comes over to talk to Joanna. He has a stammer, but that’s only made him overly interested in language, or, at least, that’s what he says. He’s asked Joanna to fill out every place she’s ever lived and then record herself essentially reading words out of a dictionary. That doesn’t seem like something he won’t take home, replay, and masturbate furiously to. He saw that scene earlier with that fantabulous midriff. I’m onto this guy.

Joanna says if this guy can help the women find time for her and Bobbie’s project, then she’ll find time for his project to record his playlist to crank it to, and, sure enough, it works!

The first meeting of this women’s group begins and the rest of the old-guard Stepford wives don’t really have anything to say. After Joanna gets things started, it starts getting pretty real. Charmaine talks about how she’s pretty sure her husband never loved her. Sure, he wanted to marry her but come on… She looks like that hot-ass redhead from that dumb show about castaways. Of course he wanted to marry her! Then, one of the Stepford women, Kit, talks about how she didn’t have time to bake anything because she spent all day trying to make the upstairs floors shine. Joanna says that she doesn’t have to bake every day. The other women talk about what they do to make their housework easier on them. Joanna’s like, “Whoa whoa whoa… cut back on the talk about housework.” That doesn’t stop them from keeping on about specific products as if they are doing an infomercial. Bobbie sees right away how vapid all these women are.

Later, as Joanna walks the dog, Walter’s men’s club buddies come over to look things over inside the bedroom. Speaking of that dog, it runs into the open gates of the Stepford Men’s Association. That forces Joanna to go after him. A policeman approaches her and explains that he can’t just let people walk around at night wherever they want. He says that due to some of the restoration of Stepford, it’s just not that safe. That’s not foreboding or anything.

After the cop basically tells Joanna to scram, and she works her way back home, a red car comes out of the gate of the Stepford Men’s Association. Driving the car is Charmaine’s husband, Ed. He is sweaty and gross (you know, like guys often are when they think too much about women having rights and freedoms and such). He seems to be having a not-so-great night. So bad, in fact, the priest in the car with him tells him he’s in no condition to operate the vehicle.

The next day, Joanna and Bobbie are coming out of the drugstore when the older lady who interviewed Joanna when she moved in approaches the pair. She says that Stepford is the most liberal town in the county. They are about to have a black family move in, and they had the first Chinese restaurant in the region. Also, they used to have a Women’s Lib group that invited nationally prominent feminists to come and speak. Carol Van Sant was the president of the group, no less!

But Carol is happier this way now because she likes having a clean home and no thoughts of her own. This all comes as a major shock to Joanna and Bobbie. Later, Joanna tries to get a gallery to show her art but has no luck. When she returns to Stepford, she and Bobbie are shocked to see Charmaine’s tennis court being demolished. They speak to Charmaine about it and find it odd to hear her say how much she wants to make her husband happy. All it took was a weekend away with just her and Ed to work things out.

Bobbie starts doing a lot of digging and thinking. She begins to think that something in or around Stepford might be putting something in the water that is turning the wives submissive to their husbands. Joanna suggests they contact a government agency, but Bobbie doesn’t think that will do much good. Joanna knows someone from college that can study a sample. They get the results but find nothing out of the ordinary in the water.

On the way back, Bobbie says she’s going to leave Stepford. She wants Joanna to come with her. She’s determined they aren’t going to end up like the other wives. That night, Joanna finishes recording the words requested by the stutterer. She asks Walter if he would be willing to move out. He admits that it’s not what he expected. He does agree, but can’t move until August. He tells Joanna to go looking for a new place to live while he finishes the work he needs to do.

Joanna and Bobbie go house hunting. Bobbie tells Joanna that she and her husband are going away for their annual weekend trip that commemorates the first time they made love. While she’s away, Joanna takes care of their kids and their dog. She gets motivated by the kids playing to take pictures.

These pictures end up scoring Joanna a chance to get noticed by a prestigious gallery. She goes to tell Bobbie about the good news. Bobbie has changed. She’s wearing a dress and makeup. Her kitchen is clean. She talks about things she sees in ads and becomes obsessive about spots on the counter. Worse, she doesn’t want to leave Stepford anymore.

Joanna tries to tell Walter what’s wrong, but it turns into him basically thinking she’s going crazy. Walter ends up complaining that their house doesn’t look as clean. He also says the kids look like ragamuffins. He tells her to quit paying attention to all these pictures she’s taking. She tells him she’s leaving Stepford and if that isn’t good enough for him, tough titties. If it disrupts the kids, she’ll figure it out herself to make it work for the kids.

Joanna goes to see a shrink to talk through what she’s dealing with. The psychiatrist tells her that it’s not surprising she’s not adjusting well after leaving the city. Stepford does indeed have a reputation outside its town limits. She doesn’t understand why Joanna has gone so far out of the way to find her to talk to and not actually explain what’s wrong. Joanna starts telling her about how the women are changed and different and she thinks all the men in the Association are doing something to change them. She doesn’t know how. She doesn’t know what it is that’s being done to the women. She also understands that if she’s wrong about this, she’s crazy. If she’s right, though, she’s in danger. Her two closest friends both changed at the four-month mark. The psychiatrist says she has to go out of town and she can’t change the plans on this short notice. Joanna says she won’t be there when she gets back. It will be someone that looks like her, talks like her, but it won’t be her. It won’t be a woman with an interest in photography. She’ll just be like one of those robots in Disneyworld. The psychiatrist tells her to get a prescription filled, gather up the kids, say nothing to Walter, and leave and find a place to stay.

When Joanna gets home, Walter sneaks up and says the kids aren’t there. They are with friends. She says she’s taking the kids and leaving. After a brief kerfuffle, she hears Walter call someone. Joanna sneaks out and goes to Bobbie’s house to find the kids, but according to her former best friend, the kids aren’t there. To prove they are different, she cuts herself and then stabs Bobbie to prove she doesn’t bleed. This causes Bobbie to glitch badly and repeat various phrases over and over.

The Stepford police are out in force with roads blocked and people looking for Joanna. She sneaks back into her home and knocks Walter on the head with a poker. He tells her their kids are at the Association. She goes there to get them and get the hell out. As she goes through the spooky, and mostly empty, mansion, she hears one of her daughters calling out for her. It turns out to be just a reel-to-reel tape player. Diz is there and says the kids are with Charmaine. He tells her that the men of Stepford have the ability to do this to their wives and that’s why they change these women. It’s just that simple. He goes for that whole “look at it from the other side” and how nice it would be for a perfect stud to always tell her how beautiful and perfect she is.

Joanna tries to run away but goes into a room where she finds a built, but not fully completed, robotic replacement for her.

It’s implied that the robot version of Joanna kills the real Joanna with a nylon stocking. We then have the final moments that this movie is best remembered for. The various women of Stepford, looking perfect and dressed in pretty, yet classy, outfits shopping at the supermarket. As the girls pass each other, they all say hello to each other. Finally, we see Joanna joining the fray as one of the Stepford Wives as if she’s always been one of the perfect, but dead behind the eyes, women of this sleepy town.

And that’s 1975’s The Stepford Wives. Is it a good movie? On a technical level, I say it actually kind of is. This is not your typical horror movie. This is the A24 style “elevated horror” kind of horror. It’s not attacking you on a visceral, physical, gory level. Instead, it’s pecking at those things that you really cannot stand to be confronted with in the real world. In the case of this movie, it’s attacking people of both sexes on a couple different levels. For everyone, it’s attacking the concept of being changed for someone else’s needs and desires. It’s a loss of your individual self. That’s what makes zombies and, like, the Borg scary. That’s scary for just about every human being. It has to be. Our individuality is what makes us a unique and interesting species.

However, this is meant to be a horror for women. As I said before getting into this movie’s plot, the original text this was based on was attacking three unique concepts in the power dynamic between men and women – what women should be in a home, the concept of consent, and how much of absolute piss-baby asshats men are in the face of feminism. Does the movie succeed in handling these concepts? On a very shallow, surface level, sure. Especially with the concept of the role of women in the home, the movie does seem to work there. Women are meant to keep the house clean, men’s bellies full, and not be heard unless they are calling you the greatest thing ever in bed. When it comes to the other two ideas, this movie fails hard.

Consent is only really touched upon very early on with the Van Sants and Walter’s elevated sex drive. It’s maybe a bit heavy of a concept for 1975 to handle any better or more subtly. It would be difficult to land in 2023, let alone back then. The other concept of how men react to feminist ideas and equality is also a difficult thing unless you portray at least some of the men with a pretty broad stroke. None of the men in this movie seem to come right out and say, “Hey, I don’t like these ideas you have or how you are trying to spread them to the other women.” Walter briefly mentions in the third act that he wishes Joanna stop with the photography and focus more on the home and the kids. But that’s about it. It never really goes much deeper than that. Sure, Diz says they can do this because they simply can, but that’s not quite obvious enough to fulfill touching upon why men would want to strike out against feminism.

So, what I would say are the absolute most important two concepts that the source material attacks are almost completely absent from the film or, at least, so subtle they are almost non-existent.

And here’s where I need to treat lightly when it comes to discussing the overall effect of this movie. I’m a guy. I mean, you probably know that. I figure that you picture me as a hulking beast of pure 100% man meat, but I’m just an average guy. I’m white. I’ve been lucky to have basically been granted all sorts of bonus points from the moment I was conceived in the summer of 1976. What I’m saying is my critiques of this movie and my ultimate takes on this movie may not be as valuable as someone of a feminine persuasion would have. I get it. But do understand one thing… This movie had to be made by men. In 1975, there weren’t many women directors making studio films – and definitely not making movies off of best-selling properties optioned by those major studios. The same thing goes for why blaxploitation was a huge thing. Anything that sniffed that kind of material at a mid-to-major production company was likely made by a white guy. I understand that there would have been liberal guys who were at least friendly to the feminist concepts wanting to adapt a popular novel. They had an Oscar winner adapting it after all. It makes perfect sense and it could be angling for a particular crowd and could be something that would be talked about.

It does do a good job of attacking someone’s sanity in a way that they know something is wrong, but they can’t rightfully explain what they are seeing or what they think is going on. Even though the psychiatrist accepts the idea that Joanna feels threatened and thinks she’s in danger, the psychiatrist can only go off how her patient feels. She can’t possibly believe anything really is happening. That is well done. For anyone who has to try to explain something someone else can’t see or has witnessed, like, for example, domestic abuse, particularly emotional abuse, it’s frustrating to that person who knows something isn’t right. So, definitely, kudos to the film for nailing that scene with the psychiatrist and Katharine Ross just breaking down knowing that it’s all on the line. She even admits that she’ll either be wrong and crazy or right and a robot. That’s torture. Translate that to that abuse thing. You’ll either be wrong and have something going on where you are misinterpreting how you read a scenario or you might end up dead.

Okay, so it does some things right. It has money and a solid writer, producer, director, and stars behind it. The problem is… the movie misses the point. Allow me to try to explain this from that “just a normal guy” thing.

Again, going back to the source material, this topic should create a dialog about those major themes. Your wife is a partner, not a slave. Her needs should come with as much weight as yours. You can’t just squeeze her boobs whenever you want. You get what I’m saying. Yet, in the aftermath of this movie, it almost created a whole ass fetish for guys. Instead of saying, “Ya know? I should reconsider this concept,” it ends up making a lot of guys say, “What? I can get a babe like Katharine Ross who has the face and midriff of my fucking dreams, but also give her bigger, perkier tits, and a shaved bush? SIGN ME UP!”

If you were to ask me why I think this created a whole fetish among men, I’d tell you that it has everything to do with the end. There was zero comeuppance for the men of Stepford. No one gets electrocuted by sticking their dick into a malfunctioning robot wife. No one took down the patriarchal system that runs this whole scheme. Some men are obviously shaken up about what will happen to the women they wooed, dated, and married, but no one stops to think it would ultimately be murder. The system carries on. Why would any man watching this movie think it’s not making them feel better about the idea of having hotter versions of their already attractive wives? Oh, and they are obedient and ready to put out on top of that? Shit yeah!

Remember, the source material was satirical in nature. So, if the movie was going to play it as a straight horror film, the ending can be a downer, but there has to be retribution. Joanna can sacrifice herself, but, ultimately, that shrink knows something is weird and when Joanna disappears she could take that as a way to try to bring it all down. Or! Joanna brings it down. She finds her robot body that hasn’t been fully assembled yet and uses her robot vagina which is still glitchy or something and shoves it on Diz’s dick and shocks him to death with it. I’m just spitballing here but I think you are getting my point. Joanna just becoming another Stepford wife and looking hot and nothing comes from everything we find out about what’s going on in the town is disappointing and really hurts the whole.

And creates a fetish that kind of undoes the whole idea of what the source material is tackling.

Still, you can’t deny the impact the book and this first film had. There were three made-for-television sequels. The first, 1980’s Revenge of the Stepford Wives, went the brainwashing route instead of robots. In 1987, there was The Stepford Children which featured a return to robotic drones replacing both the wives and children. I think that was something that is hinted at in this first movie that the kids get replaced too. Then, 1996 the series went woke and gender-swapped it with The Stepford Husbands where an evil lady clinic director brainwashed men into becoming the perfect husbands.

We’ll get to that 2004 shitcake a little later this year.

Beyond that, we’ve had two movies recently that take heavy inspiration from The Stepford Wives. The far better one of the two, Get Out, ended up nailing the thematic and the satire of some black people’s experiences as they integrate into mostly white, picturesque suburbia. It’s a lot more complicated of a concept than what I boiled down in a single sentence, but, if you haven’t seen it, see it. The far lesser, and much more recent, movie to be inspired by The Stepford Wives is Don’t Worry Darling. There’s a chance that movie could have had something to say or do, but it fumbles the bag so hard, that I can’t believe that it wasn’t completely and totally buried before it had a chance to be shown on a screen.

So, there you have it. 1975’s The Stepford Wives is not a bad movie, but it misses the mark enough to say it’s not that great either. There’s a real possibility, especially with some of the things going on in the ol’ U.S.ofA. these days, someone could really do wonders with this concept and nail it. They can go a more on-the-nose angle and play out the satire. They could go a more straightforward horror angle and cover those missed opportunities that these movies consistently kind of fumbled. For now, we slide into August next week with 1972’s Byleth from Italy. I’m sure there isn’t anything concerning about a subtitle to that movie or what a “Byleth” is that makes me want to question every choice I’ve ever made in life.

See ya then, jerkoffs!