The Stepford Children (1987)

Load of rubbish!!

It is a performances centric movie

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

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 Stepford Children starts as the Harding family leave the big city for the final time & head for the small peaceful town of Stepford where they plan to settle down, Steven Harding (Don Murray) used to live in Stepford some seventeen years ago & is familiar with the town although his wife Laura (Barbara Eden) & their two teenage children Mary (Tammy Lauren) & David (Randall Batinkoff) have no experience of Stepford themselves. At first Stepford seems perfect, the ideal place to raise a family & live but it becomes clear that Stepford is too perfect & hides a sinister secret. David meets Lois (Debbie Barker) at school & the two quickly become an item but Lois remarks at how her mother has suddenly changed, then Lois undergoes the sudden change to an emotionless shell & David becomes suspicious. It seems that the men of Stepford are replacing their wives & children with perfect robot replicas & David is next on the list...Directed by Alan J. Levi this second made for television sequel to The Stepford Wives (1975) came seven years after our last visit in Revenge of the Stepford Wives (1980) & adds nothing to the formula firmly established by the original two films & is one of the dullest films I have sat through in quite some time & to describe The Stepford Children as a slow burner would be an understatement. Sure, the wives of Stepford are given a break this time around & the Stepford children are the ones killed & replaced by so-called perfect robots to fulfill their father's idealogical desires & aspirations but it makes little difference in the end, the same sort of themes & ideas are brought up yet again with the basic notion of a necessity for human emotion & feeling. Boring. Unoriginal. Dull. Take your pick. At over an hour & a half The Stepford Children takes ages to go anywhere, one big problem is that if you are anyway familiar with original The Stepford Wives novel or film then surely you will know what's going on straight away & the attempt by the script to turn the story into a mystery thriller falls down flat on it's face. I just sat there waiting for The Stepford Children to get going but it never did, I sat there waiting to get the robot reveal out of the way early on as surely not many audiences would be totally unaware with the concept behind The Stepford Wives but it plays it incredibly seriously until the very end & tries to maintain an air of mystery, suspense & surprise which it never can hope to as it's not original or well written enough. A real bore of a film that feels like a family drama for an hour as kids rebel against their parents & the system of conformity with less than satisfying results, the character's are poor, the dialogue is forgettable & nowhere near enough happens. One to avoid unless you have insomnia.While the first hour & a bit are dull drama the last ten or fifteen minutes veers into sci-fi horror territory with a laboratory of half human half robots that look quite bad, the special effects budget was obviously minimal & at the very end all they seem to do is just tap the Harding's car window & nothing else despite everything being set-up for a big final showdown. There's no real excitement, action, tension, suspense or gore to speak of & even the story is illogical. If Steven replaced David wouldn't his wife Laura have noticed? If all the Stepford child are to be replaced who would carry on the Men's Association? Do robot's grow old? How would Stepford explain an eternally young population that never aged? What do these Stepford men do with the dead bodies of the people they replace with robot's? The Speford Children as a film is frankly as dull, emotionless & bland as it's title character's. Not good.Made for the NBC television network the entire thing has a very forgettable look, there's no style here & nothing of any great interest happens. The acting is bland, no-one stands out & the cast look bored.The Stepford Children is a really, really boring film that takes ages to repeat the theme's & ideas of the original & goes nowhere with them itself. It doesn't even try to add anything to the mix other than the robotic children angle which plays out exactly the same as the robotic wives angle anyway. Followed by yet another made for television sequel The Stepford Husbands (1996).

The Stepford Children, besides being a very good made for TV movie, shows the very disturbing result of indoctrination. It is quite a statement about how being made to act within the confines of what is considered "Good" behavior can destroy whatever it is that makes a person unique and an individual. I think that this is a movie that parents who want to maintain some semblance of the thought that loams within the hearts and minds of youngsters should watch with their children and discuss what the movie is saying. I don't know if that was in any way the intent of this movie but I have always been of the opinion that it is one of the best movie devices against the wish to have children conform to an unrealistic and domineering pretense of what is in the best interest of anyone other than that of the children themselves. I hope to one day see this movie on DVD. I am at the starting gate... waiting.

I like many others saw this as a child and I loved it and it horrified me up until adulthood, I have been trying to find this movie and even been searching for it to play again on TV someday, since it originally played on USA networks. Does Anyone know where to buy this movie, or does anyone have it and would be willing to make a copy for me? Also does anyone know if there is a chance for it to be played on TV again? Maybe all of us fans should write a station in hopes of them airing it again. I don't think they did a good job of promoting this movie in the past because no one really knows about, people only know of the Stepford wives and Stepford husband movies. No one is familiar with the fact that there was a children version. Maybe they should also do a re-make of it since they seem to be doing that a lot lately with a lot of my favorite old thriller/horror flicks. Well if anyone has any input Please I Beg Of You write me with information. Thanks Taira [email protected]