Film Roar

The Stepford Wives (1975)

What is more frightening than a monster movie? How about a horror film that relies on pointing out how screwed up the society we live in is, to get its frights? Point in case: The creepy scene with a store full of Stepford Wives grocery shopping with Sunday hats and lace gloves on. There is something deeply wrong with that moment, and I don't just mean the vacant eyes and hollow greetings they give each other as they shop. What makes the scene so disturbing is that the housewife holding the can of product up so the label shows while in her Sunday best IS something we have seen before: in countless detergent and margarine ads. When you watch The Stepford Wives(1975) don't just see the horror, read the context. Let me give you a hint: Women's Liberation.

Incidentally, the movie is being remade thirty years later starring Nicole Kidman and Joan Cusack. While I detest the Hollywood propensity to mess up classic movies by remaking them with a dumbed down script and a happy ending, the casting seems perfect.