Rating: 
Summary: Horror and Satire Combine Well
Review: It's rare that horror and satire can work side by side, but it's here in The Stepford Wives, a film about the noxious state of men aspiring so blindly to their suburban materialism whereby women are no better than all the gadgets that men love to lord over. The women in this mythical town of Stepford all live for ladling love and food to their husbands, but there's something not quite right about them. You'll have to see the film to discover the nature of their malaise. Joanna, the protagonist, must face suburban life with her husband and what she discovers as she meets her half-witted neighbors is a conspiracy so evil that she concludes that she is 1)crazy or 2)that she's not crazy and everything she suspects about this evil town is true. In one of the great lines of the film, she says that being right is actually worse than being crazy. There's a lot of thematic meat here: The sterile soulless aspect of pursuing "perfection" in the suburbs; the self-abnegation and self-erasure that wives often submit to in order to "fit" in the scheme of things; men's obsession with control stripping them of their capacity for intimacy. All of this in a fast-paced film that, despite the campy, corny 1970s soundtrack, still feels up to date.
Rating: 
Summary: Eerie....Creepy.....FUN!!!!
Review: This film is a great example of how a director could scare the wits out of you and keep you absolutely on the edge of your seat without ever having to resort to some guy with a bad Oedipus complex in a hockey mask, weilding a knife for the umpteenth time. There are certain forms of horror that are so subtle as to be chilling and this movie showcases just such subtlety.Walter and Joanna move from the big city to the idyllic town of Stepford, Ct. were the air is pure, the water is clean, and the wives have spotless homes, gardens, children, and well, lives. Very quickly you get the idea that something isn't quite right. The women are perfect, too perfect. As the story unfolds you begin to see how the intricate pieces of the plot fit together. You are given clues from time to time, but again they are subtle so you have to pay attention. The husbands in the town are guarding some sort of secret and the newer wives are nervous about it, but a weekend alone with hubby solves everything for each of them. This weekend gives the ladies a newfound love and respect for their spouses, children, homes, and spray starch. The part of Dale "Diz" Coba played brilliantly by Patrick O'Neal is one of the least developed but most interesting in the movie. There is so much more the director could have done with his part. Tina Louise is also very good as Charmaine Wimperis, showing us a side of her acting talent far removed from "Gilligan's Island." The last 10 minutes of the movie are so grippingly suspenseful that they are worth the whole of the movie. If you like suspense and twists, you are going to love this movie!
Rating:
Summary: Choice example of political sci-fi
Review: Growing up in the supposedly 'post-feminist' era, I heard "Stepford Wife" thrown about in popculture reference to a severely represed woman without individual being. This dour description almost turned me off of this delightful movie. Yet, a college intervention convinced me to give the title another chance. For the film wasn't actually celebrating such women, offering a cautionary tale instead of how dreary and horrific such life actually was. The men of Stepford are supposedly happy with their robotic wives, but how secure are they with themselves if they had to create virtual doormats? Furthermore, what kind of homelife did this virtual hell create for the children (who undoubtedly would have been traumatized by the ordeal)? My feminist self liked the movie precisely because the classic script exploited the tension between culture and politics suspesfully. The camp factor (delightfully high) and the now dated appearance of many wardrobe ensembles adds to the overall sense of disorientation. We know something is not quite right, but cannot initally (along with the main character) decipher what it is untill revealled. Sure movie makers could have sat down, planned and filmed a conventional (inevitably stodgy) doccumentary showing how things are ultimately better when each woman is allowed to fufill their own individual dreams, but that would have not had the same appeal. Audiences at the 1975 premire and thereafter may have not realized they were participating in a feminist conciousness raiser themselves. This film was intended for the audiences who would not neccessarily go down to the corner newstand and buy Ms. magazine, attend the meetings of the local feminist group, but nevertheless needed simmiliar information---and perhaps even more so than the other groups.
Rating: 
Summary: Mindlessly Made Movie
Review: I don't think I'll be getting too many clicks on helpful for this review, but I found the whole concept to be as believable as when a woman had told me that aliens are here after our eyelids. What [person] would even remotely believe that this could ever happen. It's really annoying reading reviews of people saying how wonderful it was and how this could "CHILLINGLY" be true some day. Add that to the eyeball's issue and you have a movie that just downright [was weak].
Rating: 
Summary: well made but...
Review: If you have any inkling as to what this movies about your in for a long slow trip through seventies suburbia. I heard a rumor that Tim Burton is planning a remake (Hope its better than Planet of the Apes.) so I checked this flick out. I also heard that it's tense and scary, and it could be unless you figure out what indeed is going down in Stepford. And it's not too tough to guess believe me.
This film is more like a really, really long episode of the Twilight Zone. It does have a decent payoff at the very end but it sure takes an awful long time getting there.
Rating:
Summary: The denouement is a masterpiece....
Review: This movie is one of my 10 favorite movies of all time. It's intelligent, thought-provoking, and (ultimately) infuriating. The first 45 minutes or so seem to be tedium at first. It's only in hindsight that the beginning takes on significance--numerous clues are given to the viewer, but usually aren't noticed. From then on, the suspense builds gradually, moment by moment. The last 10 or 15 minutes rank among the most suspenseful in movie history, and the denouement.....(a moment of silence for this gut-wrenching moment). Let's just say that the ending made me so angry that I threw a tennis shoe at the telly. Just watch it and see.
Rating: 
Summary: BARBIE RULES!...
Review: This is a well made adaptation of the thought provoking, tautly written novella of the same name by Ira Levin, author of "Rosemary's Baby". It was first released in 1975 and became a box office smash. The story is very simple, but gripping and well written. Joanna Eberhart (Katherine Ross) moves to the seemingly bucolic town of Stepford with her husband, Walter (Peter Masterson), and two children, leaving behind the dangers of big city living. An independent, assertive, intelligent, and creative woman, Joanna epitomizes the newly liberated women of the nineteen seventies. Looking for like souls with whom to become friends, she seeks out some of the other married women of the town, only to find that they are, for the most part, all uniformly addicted to housework, give their husbands complete obeisance, are made up to the gills, and have figures courtesy of more than maidenform. Joanna manages to find two like minded women such as herself, Bobbie Marlowe (Paula Prentiss) and Charmaine Wimperis (Tina Louise) with whom to pal around. Bobbie, however, has a creepy feeling about the town and the women that seem to dominate the landscape and wants to move out of Stepford at the first possible moment. Then, a series of puzzling events occur, and Joanna becomes convinced that the town's mysterious Men's Association, presided over by the slightly sinister and chauvinistic Dale Coba (Patrick O'Neal), has hatched a sinister plot to change all the wives of Stepford into submissive Barbie dolls. Will Joanna manage to escape the fate of the rest of the Stepford wives? Watch the film and find out. This film, coming out on the heels of the feminist movement, struck a deep chord at the time of its release. No one can doubt that the women represented by Joanna, Bobbie, and Charmaine are infinitely more interesting than the lady in the kitchen-whore in the bedroom stereotype desired by the Stepford men, who were, for the most part, physically unprepossessing, though successful. Have things changed all that much in terms of what successful men want in their wives? Instead of the submissive, Betty Crocker, little Miss Homemaker, Barbie doll type desired by the men in this film, many successful men today desire young, submissive, trophy wives with boob jobs. So what has really changed in the quarter of a century since this film was released? Katherine Ross, Paula Prentiss, and Tina Louise all give fine performances. Patrick O'Neal is terrific as the slightly sinister and supercilious President of the Stepford Men's Association. All in all, this is a moderately suspenseful and enjoyable film. The DVD provides crystal clear audio and decent visual. The only problem is that one would think that the silver anniversary edition would offer a little more by way of special features than interviews with the director, producers, and stars.
Rating:
Summary: The Trouble With the Stepford Wife Prototype...
Review: ....was that the ideal mate did not/does not exist and if you did body snatch and convert your mate to these soulless, catatonic androids who look like women....wouldn't 'that' also be chipped beef HELL on toast? I thought it would be a fun thing if a bunch of women here in town had started to run around in those full-eye/aminal-eye contact lens and those flower print chiffon dresses, talking about running home to cook a pot roast for their husbands. That would definitely cause quite a stir, here. Or, maybe not. Anyhoo, Ira Levin was one of my favorite authors--"Rosemary's Baby", "Boys from Brazil" and the like--and this is a fine moovy adaptation of a chilling novel. A bit dated, but as I read in another reviewer's work below will be remade in the very near future.
Rating:
Summary: Stepford Wives - The classic on the dangers of conformity
Review: The Stepford Wives is one of those movies that really seems to be of its time as a period piece, but still contains themes that are worth noting. Although its primarily a study on the importance of the individual and the importance of feminist ideology in the 70's as opposed to the house frau ideology of the 1950's patriarchy, it serves as an example of why individuality and non conformity are values to be treasured, not buried to keep up a facade of subservience. Paula Prentiss and Katherine Ross turn in solid performances as well. Ross' usurption by her soulless doppleganger at the end is a priceless scene. Plus, with a remake in the works due in 2003 by Frank Oz, this will be required viewing.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Flick...Bare-bones Transfer.
Review: Always an enjoyable film...DVD is lacking any extras.
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