By Geno McGahee
One of my favorite movies is the 1975 “THE STEPFORD WIVES,” where a men’s club got rid of their wives and replaced them with enhanced “home body” robots that basically did whatever they wanted. It was unique and creepy. In 1980, a made for TV sequel was released by the name of “REVENGE OF THE STEPFORD WIVES,” which makes no sense. They won in the first film. Why would they want revenge? Revenge against who? I guess they just assumed that the bad guys lost in the original and since so many sequels have ‘revenge’ in the title, why not do it here. Although I find the name silly, it proved to be the least of its problems.
We have a journalist coming into the town, writing a story on the town of Stepford. Kaye Foster (Sharon Gless) moves into a hotel and it shakes the men’s club. They are concerned her prying may open up a big can of worms that will reveal what they are doing to the women of the town. The decision is finally made to kill her by having her run down by Mrs. Roper. Well, Audra Lindley plays “Barbara Parkinson,” but I know her as “Mrs. Roper” from THREE’S COMPANY. Well, she fails to kill the journalist but she raises some questions and now Foster is really digging.
Foster finds an alliance with the owner of the hotel, Megan (Julie Kavner). How she was able to stomach Megan for more than 10 seconds is beyond me. She has the most annoying voice that I have ever heard, but it gets worse. She’s fucking Don Johnson! Don Johnson plays her husband, a cop named “Andy.” It’s bad enough that you give Don Johnson an ugly fat wife, but you name him “Andy?” What the fuck did he ever do to them? At points, he had to make out with Megan…yikes! This is one of the most mismatched couples in the history of film. Now, I’m no pecker checker, but Don Johnson is in his prime here and should have been in nail super model mode, but instead he goes for this annoying, ugly, fat chick? Who the hell did the casting here? I know they say love is blind, but not this blind. Don would not stick his Johnson in Megan, in my opinion.
Thankfully, Don Johnson (sorry, I can’t call him ‘Andy’) brings his wife into the hospital to get her into Stepford Wife mode, but things have changed apparently. They aren’t robots anymore. They are manipulated by pills that they must take four times a day. What?! When did this happen? I want revenge now! In the original, they would take the wives and give them bigger boobs and spruce them up, but now, they just take the same old one and drug her? That’s not the Stepford spirit!
There are a lot of scenes taken directly out of the first. The malfunctioning best friend is nearly identical and so is the car accident scene. I think that they were trying to tie the two together but there’s no use. This film is not in same galaxy as the first. It didn’t understand what made the first so great and just took elements of the idea and made this uninspired mess.
REVENGE OF THE STEPFORD WIVES is about as bad as it gets people. From start to finish, this film is lost. It is a bad copy of the first with terrible dialogue and forgettable characters. The original was creepy and atmospheric with great characters across the board. This one is just complete shit and please don’t blame Don Johnson. He did what he could with this one, but it didn’t have a heartbeat.
Rating: 1/10
As a special treat, here is Don Johnson’s great song and video for “Heartbeat.”
