This movie is based on a book written by Ira Levin. So was "Rosemary's Baby," and when I watched that movie, it sucker punched me out of nowhere and haunted me for days. After that happened, I turned into a big baby and chickened out of ever watching this movie, so the DVD has been sitting on my shelf for like 14 years. The thing is, I know everything that's going to happen in this movie, I've had the whole plot spoiled for me over the years, but I also knew everything that was going to happen in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" too, and look how that turned out. I've managed to conquer my fears and watch some other movies I was afraid to watch this year for the horror challenge, so here goes.
I'm sure you know what this movie is about. A woman named Joanna played by Katharine Ross, moves with her husband and children to a small town to get away from the city. There's something weird about the town though. The men are a tight-knit group who seem to be keeping secrets, and most of the wives seem vapid and subservient to their husbands. The only real friend Joanna can find is Bobbie, played by Paula Prentiss, who is another new transplant to the town of Stepford who agrees that the town is a little creepy. They begin digging into the town's history trying to find answers, and what they discover is horrifying.
So it's obvious that this movie has feminist overtones. The men of Stepford have boorish, outdated views on how women should behave, and their vision of the ideal wife is obedient to her husband, has no real interests of her own, and lives to serve her man. Needless to say, this doesn't go over well with the new wives who move to Stepford and want to have lives of their own that don't revolve around pleasing their husbands.
The thing is, Joanna is kind of a jerk. She's on her husband's case a lot and wants to argue with him a lot, and I get how that can be annoying, but that's just what having a relationship with another human is like. You're going to butt heads, disagree, compromise. Would you really want to trade that in for a marriage to an obedient little robot who agrees with everything you say? I wouldn't, and I would hope most people wouldn't want that either. Movies like this where people want to control their spouse just get under my skin, so the whole movie experience is uncomfortable for me (that's why they call it horror though, I guess). This kind of movie will always be more horrific for me. I can watch a million monsters rip people's heads off, but give me a movie like this and I want to cover my eyes and cower in fear.
The scariest part about watching this movie is watching Joanna grow more and more terrified as time passes because she sees the way the women in town act, she sees her friends change from women with personality to robotic, obedient little drones, and she knows that it's going to happen to her soon, and there's nothing she can do to save herself. Her husband who used to love her now wants to order her around like she's a pet, and she doesn't know what's happening or how to stop it. When Joanna is confronting her former friend Bobbie trying to get her to admit that she's changed, or snap her out of whatever trance she seems to be in, and she's crying, yelling "when I cut myself I bleed, do YOU bleed?" It's pretty terrifying. And the fact that her husband gives in and agrees to whatever horrible plan the town has, I want to punch him in the face. I want a partner, not a robot, and it makes me sick that people would settle for anything less. So yeah, this movie is scary, and it makes me sick to my stomach, but in a good way that let's me know it's done its job well.
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