The ending is so wrong.
-
Roddenhyzer — 12 years ago(March 21, 2014 05:28 PM)
Just let people tell their stories, for f'ck's sake. Not everything has to have its dramatic integrity compromised by tendentiousness, or by having to serve as the movie equivalent of a "Hang in there!" poster.
-
Duragizer — 11 years ago(May 16, 2014 10:53 AM)
I'm not fond of the ending, either, but for somewhat different reasons than yours. I think Joanna should have managed to kill some of the bastards her husband and/or Coba and put up a fight against her robot duplicate before dying herself.
I'm Heather Langenkamp's husband in another universe. -
missmisfit-1 — 11 years ago(November 29, 2014 03:54 PM)
Perhaps a compromise between a happy & sad ending would even work.
How about Joanna having cool computer skills. Before the climax, she finds the central computer that controls the fembots. Just then the bot version of her comes & the story ends like the original..
..buuuuuut.then, the Joanna-bot comes home from the grocery store & goes to make some stew. Joanna-bot cuts a carrot as her hubby starts gettin' fresh with her..
.a sinister smile crosses her lips.her knife-wielding hand slowly raises..
.CUT TO.a news report showing footage of Stepford in flames! The mutilated bodies of the guys litter the streets..
Thus, Joanna, posthumously saves the day, gets the last laugh, the bad guys wiped out because she hacked the program & made a bunch of killer fembots who become bombs after slicin' & dicin'.
Okay, so it's the 70's and the whole "hacker" trope wasn't all the rage but it would make a cool twist.
I don't mind grimness per-se.provided the dark ending is bittersweet than a complete downer.
The Exorcist
comes to mind, where it's basically a draw. The demon achieved it's goal of causing Merrin's heart attack death but Regan the young girl is freed from the demon via a heroic sacrifice by Father Karras (he had his Last Rites read to him as he lay dying, so it's assumed he goes to Heaven). Pazuzu succeeds in causing the PHYSICAL deaths of two priests but fails in getting the little girl.
I never could understand why grim, nihilistic movies were so big in the 70's. If societies were going through a big funk, wouldn't it make better sense to get into escapism?
THE 1930's-40's: The Great Depression & a new Great War is going on, let's stay positive and enjoy some escapism to keep our spirits up!
THE late 60s-1970's: Vietnam is still going, the youth movement has seen better days, the best leaders have been assassinated & we wear all this silly polyesterLET'S WATCH SHOWS THAT WALLOW IN MISERY!
I could never understand that. Not just with the 70's but with any time. When times are rough, we like entertainment that reflects that.it's masochistic. I don't get it. I just don't!
If you're in a metaphorical dark room and hate the darkness, you turn on the light switch, not close the blinds! -
speedy1383 — 11 years ago(December 10, 2014 08:52 PM)
I loved the ending. The ending for the remake was horrible horrible. The original was great. I don't need happy endings. This felt right. This is exactly like life. Life doesn't go as planned. Movies are the same way. If all of them ended on a good note, that would be awful
-
tabbycat — 11 years ago(January 04, 2015 02:21 PM)
I don't think horror thrillers are for you, my friend.
This is not a film about feminism. It's about evil, and how conspiracies allow it to persist and grow.
Joanna cannot win here because she never sees that the Association is always three steps ahead of her, a concept central to a good thriller. There are other genres where the heroine can prevail, but this isn't one.
What did you feel at the final frame? Sadness? Mission accomplished. Ultimately, horror really is just Shakespearean tragedy, except the protagonist's only "fatal flaw" may be their humanity.
The ending is powerful, tragic and sad. In other words, perfect.
"Why?
Because we can." -
missmisfit-1 — 11 years ago(January 31, 2015 07:48 PM)
You can still have a horror film full of horrible horror stuff and still have good & humanity win, my friend. Even those cheesy slasher flicks often had that "final girl" dispatching the spooky masked killer. Even
Poltergeist
had Carol Anne freed from "The Beast" on various occasions.
The thing is, if a scary story has a social message (like
Stepford Wives
' 'feminism' theme), one assumes there's a social message, an important point being made.
I know that unhappy endings exist in real life. I know there's injustice. I know that sometimes the bad guys win & there's no comeuppance. I'm not naive.
But I just don't understand the "Grim Times Needs Grim Stories" mindset. -
franzkabuki — 11 years ago(February 15, 2015 12:42 AM)
"Pessimistic, defeatist".
How about true to life? Either way the film was making a point there and a happy ending would have undercut the whole thing. You sort of sound like you're brainwashed into believing false idylls yourself.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan -
fiatlux-1 — 11 years ago(March 12, 2015 03:29 PM)
Not even one of them felt guilty about it or regretted it, seriously?
That floored me too. I guess it was to show exactly HOW evil these men were.
The leader, Diz, knew how to pick 'em.
The author of the novel, Ira Levin, also wrote 'Rosemary's Baby'. In that novel also, the males are all 100% icy-cold.
Same thing here I guess.
In the film, we do see (very very briefly) some 'regret'. Joanna's husband talks of his uncertainty to Diz, who in turn eases his mind.
Same with Ed Wimperis, we see him crying & drunk after killing his wife Charmaine.
ButBOTH men get over it really quick.
I'd say this cloud is Cumulo Nimbus.
Didn't he discover America?
Penfold, shush. -
PussyCrusher_Principal — 10 years ago(April 12, 2015 01:21 PM)
Well, it's a horror film, first and foremost. The subject of feminism is really used to drive the plot, as when Joanna says to Bobbi "I messed around with feminism in NYC" ("who hasn't", I believe, was the response), and "I'm not talking a Maidenform Bonfire here, but", and then, in reaction to the alarm they feel at what they see in Stepford, they go around trying to raise consciousness.
But if you really need to make the ending meaningful, in a (somewhat) positive way in regards to feminism, how about "if we women don't stick together, bad things can happen". The men used a "divide and conquer" scheme to change the wives, as when Bobbie went away and never came back. Just spitballin'
Takes two to tumble it takes two to tango
Speak up don't mumble when you're in the combo -
missmisfit-1 — 10 years ago(May 01, 2015 12:01 AM)
Makes sense.
And like you said, it's a horror flick, and the downer ending was part of it. I now just realized that it's not saying that "Feminism will fail". It ends grimly because that's SCARY. It's just one town, anyway.
Besides, there was a sequel where the "Men's Association" get their comeuppance. The two afterwards are just milking the concept to stupid degrees. I like to pretend that only the first two movies are canon. There's the "Feminism vs. Misogyny" theme and the fact that it allows the bad guys to lose in the end. I like that.
I need to quit getting sensitive about bummer endings and not see every flick as a big social message.and just take each movie on a story-by-story basis.
For me, I'll just check out "spoiler" websites to ease the sting of a grim ending.
..and get into fanfic writing for relief.
After all
"You don't have to accept the ending they give you." - Joel (To Crow & Tom Servo on MST3K) -
austelwx — 10 years ago(February 13, 2016 07:27 PM)
Downer endings are for adults. So many authors have satirized the cliche of the "coddled, insecure public that can't stand a harsh ending and needs a simplistic, happy Hollywood outcome," and I like to think people are tougher than that. But yikes, threads like this just show how pathetically true that particular cliche is.
-
InherentlyYours — 10 years ago(April 01, 2016 11:50 PM)
There always, always has to be a woman to find pretentious hidden meanings of females being wronged, feminism etc., and also cite the 70's as some target also. The year is was made is irrelevant
Yet, when men are defeated and doomed by women (or men) in a film, there is no reaction. Women like the OP are venting their own demons, I think. And over a harmless horror film/thriller