The first must-see film of the year.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Great ideas are few and far between. This is a great idea. Written at a time when women's liberation was finally emerging from a 1960s where possibly the most blatant (Technicolor) sexism was portrayed in popular culture and men were still of the generation that assumed theirs was really the dominant sex. (Yes , some still do, I think they are called Neanderthals?)The expectation was for women to act accordingly - at home and work. The world was still absolutely patriarchal. Only the hidden power of women - at home and work - was still lingering in the subconscious. Ready to emerge. And in the 1970s I think there was real progress.This film just asks a question, what do you want from a partner? A real person, given power to choose, another human being to share lifes ups and downs, a partner and soul mate, or that which is given pleasing shape and kitchen duties? There is of course only one answer, or should be unless tradition, peer pressure and convention expose the frailty of the male ego to the point of murder? Trust, role play and many other topics are touched upon, the savage final reel shattering the idyllic suburban setting is more Twin Peaks / Blue Velvet - and one wonders how much influence this may have had.This is a truly beautiful film to look at, the camerawork , performances and direction are all first rate and produce a memorable, and finely crafted masterpiece in the art of film making. 10/10 (I rated it 8/10 on the absolute scale - compared to the modern remake for instance which takes the premise to an altogether different place - with its plastic, robotic, modern Hollywood manufacture - even before the story starts - it's a 10 in comparison

The movie is scary at the end. I would never watch the end again. Just too creepy. If you can stand it, you should watch the end at least once to catch the horror of the story.But I find the scenes where the wives suddenly start obeying their husbands generally funny. Of course in real life this would be a horror, as it is at the end. But there is something hilarious about people suddenly saying and doing things they would never do before. People just don't do that, at least under normal circumstances like living in an affluent suburb.I see a lesson in the film about human autonomy. Our freedom is about doing our own quirky things, even if they're stupid. As one reviewer mentioned, the Katharine Ross character is actually a rather annoying person in some ways. Her freedom isn't about being good, but about being herself. Of course her sometimes annoying character does not reduce in the least the evil of her creepy husband.

Based on Ira Levin's satirical novel The Stepford Wives is a story that at first seems like a simple thriller but on a closer look offers so much more. It doesn't just offer effective psychological suspense, work as a commentary on society's pursuit of youth and perfection, it is also a sci-fi horror with touches of dark humour and the best part is that it only gets better when you re-watch it. For the most part the film moves along slowly and quietly, painting a peaceful picture of a suburban dream life and even when Joanna begins to suspect something is amiss nothing in the movie gives away just how life shattering the town's secret is. It is not until the climatic end that the horror truly pokes it face out and sends chills down your spine and knowing the secret from the beginning means the chills are there from the very start when re-watching the movie. As the movie is shown from Joanna's perspective a lot of the horror happens unseen to us and as you think back on the movie those horrors will play for your inner eye and set thoughts in motion which makes this an incredibly strong movie with more impact than a simple jump-scare horror. While the movie has been criticized for being anti-feminist Stepford is clearly more chauvinistic dystopia than heaven and the men are cold and flat characters compared to the fleshed-out warm and strong females. All the women, the Stepford wives that is, give brilliant performances of perfect housewives so clearly inspired by the phony females in adds that they manage to give a comic edge to the story, perfectly hitting the note so it slowly increases the sense of something wrong rather than making the tone too light. Especially Ross (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969) is great as the heroine, at once feisty but still insecure and self-doubting from the insanity of the situation, and Prentiss (The Parallax View, 1974) is a delight as the bubbly Bobbie just as the beautiful Louise (Day of the Outlaw, 1959) brilliantly shows the insecurity hidden underneath the beautiful face of the feisty Charmaine, while Newman (Captain Nemo and the Underwater City, 1969) delivers the perfect archetype Stepford wife persona as Carol Van Sant. One could argue that the statement against gender roles was more important in the time of the book's publishment and movie's release but considering the high standard everyone is met with in today's global life, it is as familiar a theme as ever and Bryan Forbes's (The Raging Moon, 1971) bright sunny-set movie with its gloomy secret luring underneath will still be able to hit you and hit you hard.Moviegeek.eu

I didn't see this 1975 film until about 20 years after its release. Even though I knew the basic plot I was quite captivated by the events of the story. Well, I've seen it three more times since then and each time I'm taken in by the storyline, not to mention well entertained.THE PLOT: Katharine Ross and her husband move to Stepford, CT, where many of the wives of the village seem to be oblivious to the current women's liberation movement; they seem wholly dedicated to their husbands, home & garden and keeping themselves well-groomed and primed for sex. Meanwhile Katharine's husband joins a mysterious all-male organization which seems to be up to something fishy. When two of Katharine's friends strangely morph into the typical Stepford housewife Katharine suspects something sinister. And guess who's next in line?Paula Prentiss and Tina Louise (Ginger from Giligan's Island) are on hand as Katharine's friends.The story's not campy at all (like the 2004 version). This is serious and creepy sci-fi of the highest order. "The Stepford Wives" powerfully succeeds where the similar-themed "Westworld" only passably gets by.GRADE: A