Los niños de Stepford

You may have serious doubts about watching the third sequel to The Stepford Wifes, but this is an absolute classic. Much scarier in premise than the first, and very entertaining. It only got a video release here in the UK, but should be released worldwide for everyone to enjoy.

The Stepford Children is the second sequel to the cult 70's movie The Stepford Wives. This is the only sequel I have seen but I am aware they are all made for TV movies. The angle that this instalment takes is that now it is the children of Stepford who are being re-made to fit the ultra-conservative model favoured by the men of the community. I guess its underlying message is a warning against regimented conformity and the pursuit of an idealised 'perfection'. In this sense it's no different really to the first film but because the focus is now on teenagers as opposed to women, it takes the message away from the misogyny of a male dominated society to the angst of teenagers growing up and trying to remain individuals in a society that tries to mould them. It's the kind of themes that remain very relevant.

The story focuses on a family who move to the town of Stepford from the big city. The two kids do not fit into the community at all well, seeing as all the other teenagers from the town seem to be lifeless automatons. Although, it does have to be said that these two are the most 80's looking teenagers imaginable – it's hairspray, indoor-shades-wearing and headbands all the way! Anyway, before long their father becomes a member of the ominous Men's Association and he is soon convinced to have his wayward children 'corrected'.

This is overall a fairly decent film. The Stepford set-up is an interesting one and more leverage is engineered from the basic premise. But obviously the sense of mystery from the original movie is long gone and this does detract from the film's impact somewhat. We know from the outset why the women and children act so strangely, so it does mean that the amateur sleuthing by the new family is sort of wasted on us. But even taking this into account it's still an effective enough movie. The acting performances are pretty decent and there are some individual good moments, most of which involve scenes of the robotic replicas acting oddly. It's only towards the end where we see the sinister goings on behind the scenes. It's perhaps a pity there wasn't a little more made of this though as the ending itself is a bit too rushed for much of an impact. But all-in-all The Stepford Children is a decent enough TV chiller.

The second sequel to the 1975 sci-fi classic THE STEPFORD WIVES, following on from REVENGE OF THE STEPFORD WIVES; THE STEPFORD HUSBANDS would follow in the 1990s. These three sequels are all television movies of varying quality, but at least they're more interesting than the bland Hollywood remake with Nicole Kidman.

Sadly, THE STEPFORD CHILDREN is a largely uninteresting retread of the first film's plot, except that now the children have been transformed into perfect specimens rather than the wives. It's a bit of an odd choice, making the first hour of this film very slow and laboured, because we already know the story and events from the first film so why drag it out again?

It doesn't help that the characters range from the uninteresting to the downright unlikeable, although some interest builds with the younger cast members as the story progresses. The only part I really liked was the climax, which is actually decent and pretty frightening; we get to see what THE STEPFORD CHILDREN look like underneath and it's a good effect. A shame we had to sit through the rest of the production to get to this bit, though.

Considering the excellence of the original Stepford Wives, I find it very hard to believe that Ira Levin had a hand in this very poor "clone" (no pun intended).

It's a formulaic as I've ever seen coming out of Hollywood. We all know the ending from the first five minutes of the the start.

Barbara Eden just does not suit this role. For starters, she's too old, secondly, she's typecast and we can't get Jeanie out of our heads.

It's poorly directed and all the acting is hammed up to the limit, with each character trying his or her self to be a silly stereotype.

Richard Anderson, who played Oscar Goldman in The 6 million Dollar Man is no match for Patrick O'Neal in The Stepford Wives. Everything about this movie shouts "Low budget" and "Hurried".

I watched this movie, so you don't have to. Please don't make the same mistake.

BTW, the remake of The Stepford Wives (with Christopher Walken and Glen Close is even worse.

In a sequel we already know what's supposed to be happening so any sense of mystery is redundant. And so watching creepy children and women act "strangely" isn't exactly exciting.

I also must question the intelligence of turning their children into machines since eventually, the population of the Gentlemen's Club would die, at least some would, there would be no one to continue their bloodline and a suspicious number of purposeless citizens roaming around.

So the plot doesn't make sense really and because of the slow pace, it's difficult to watch without noticing the idiot plot. Technically not a bad movie, just a very flawed one.