As reported by Mike Kelly
There are now two versions of this classic movie lurking about homes on DVD now….
Please – do not read any further unless you are OK with the plot of this movie being given away. The original “Stepford Wives†makes an excellent horror movie IF you don’t have a clue what’s going on. I didn’t the first time I saw it…..scary stuff – if you are completely in the dark!
The original 1975 version of the SF/Horror thriller “The Stepford Wives†is about a small suburb where the women happily go about their housework - cleaning, doing laundry, and cooking gourmet meals - to please their husbands. Unfortunately, the characters Bobbie and Joanna discover that the village's wives have been replaced with sex androids and Joanna’s husband wants in on the action.
Joanna and Walter are the two newest residents in Stepford. Joanna, although a "housewife" is intelligent and creative - taking an interest in photography: she wants to be "remembered". Like many of the men in Stepford, Walter is an obviously inadequate husband. Conflict occurs when Joanna complains that Walter is making all of the decisions for them. Walter joins the mysterious Stepford "Men's Club", which takes place in an old manor house that is heavily guarded.
Joanna is disturbed that many of the Stepford wives spend their lives in domestic servitude, are unintelligent and wear flowery print dresses. Her friend Bobbie thinks that it might be due to something in the water. At a consciousness-raising group that Joanna starts, the wives begin discussing spray starch and cleaning products.
The awful truth is that the men of Stepford are replacing their wives with complacent domestic sex androids. Gradually, Joanna begins to realize that all of her friends have been replaced and that she is in great danger. Her psychiatrist advices that she take the kids and gets "the hell out of Stepford", but the men are hiding Joanna's children. Can she find them, or will she be murdered and replaced by Sex Android Joanna?
The original Stepford Wives is one of the best horror flicks ever done and is a classic of the genre.
Stepford Wives – the remake.
Now remakes are OK in my book if they offer something new and interesting and build upon the issues and themes of their source material. By now everyone knows the central plot thread of the 1974 filmed version, and for the most part the story is the same here. But this time around they wanted to do a straightforward comedy.
In this version, Walter Kresby (Broderick) and Joanna Eberhart (Kidman) have left the hustle and bustle of New York for the quiet town of Stepford, Conneticut, after Joanna is fired from her high profile television job. The cause for her firing is that a contestant on a Temptation Island-like series has gone on a shooting spree after losing his girlfriend, thanks to a predetermined outcome on the reality series. Sent into a state of shock, Joanna arrives in Stepford to a luxurious new house and surroundings that would make Martha Stewart envious—especially now.
But, as everyone knows, the women of Stepford have a secret and soon Joanna begins to see that something strange is happening. The women are much more interested in being full-time mothers and housewives than independent successful businesswomen, and aside from another recent member of the town, Bobbi (Midler), each of the women appear as perfectly made-up servants for their husbands. While the women are all eerily similar, the men share only one thing—a membership to the local men's association, which Walter is close to becoming a member of. It doesn't take Joanna long to see that there is something strange happening in the town of Stepford, and the root of it lies in the men's club.
With the secret of the plot known well already by a vast majority of audiences, the film must rely on the performances and the visuals. The production design is topnotch once the action shifts to Stepford. Kidman does a good job, and Broderick plays the straight man rather well. The supporting cast - with Glenn Close and Christopher Walken being themselves, and that is about as good as it gets. Midler all but steals the show with her satirical and quick-tempered Bobbi, one of the true highlights of the film.
The bottom line is – the original is a must buy on DVD, the transfer is perfect and it is a must in anyone’s DVD collection. The remake is an OK comedy that I did laugh in parts while watching. If you are a Kidman fan and have to have all of her movies then get this one too. The Good news is that the DVD copy of the remake has some nice extras on it.
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