The Stepford Children 1987

Laura Harding [Barbara Eden] and Steven Harding [Don Murray] move with their children to the town of Stepford, Connecticut, where Steven had lived with his first wife who died under mysterious circumstances. Laura works toward passing the bar exam, while Steven grows uneasy about their children—David Harding [Randall Batinkoff], athletic but unfocused, and Mary Harding [Tammy Lauren], free-spirited and music-loving. The couple finds themselves pulled into a community that claims to perfect life, and Steven soon becomes involved with the town’s exclusive Men’s Association, a club whose influence is darker than it appears. Together, the Hardings begin to sense that Stepford’s quiet surface hides a disturbing, shared project: the wives have already been transformed into obedient, robotic partners, and now the teenagers seem destined for the same fate.

The Hardings befriend the Gregsons, a lively family that adds texture to Stepford’s veneer. Sandy Gregson [Sharon Spelman], a sloppy and high-spirited mom, and her daughter Lois Gregson [Debbie Barker] become a focal point for David, who starts a romance with Lois. Laura is puzzled when the school principal discourages her attempts to establish a PTA, and Mary grows uneasy with her passive classmates, as if the school is quietly collecting images, hair, and other personal data. At Parents’ Night, Laura begins to feel a growing distance between her parenting approach and Steven’s fixation on a flawless image for their family.

During a town dance, the teens—David, Mary, and Lois—notice that Sandy has changed, becoming obsessively neat and almost obsessive about domestic rituals like baking Bundt cakes. The dance devolves into chaos, with the teenagers dancing awkwardly under a gaze that seems programmed rather than spontaneous. The trio is arrested, only to be released when Steven and Mr. Gregson vow to “do something” about the situation. The uneasy balance in Stepford starts to tilt as fear and suspicion spread among families who once trusted the town’s order.

Lois reaches out to David in a panic, claiming that all the men in town are converging on her house and that she is in danger. The teens flee on their motorcycles, but Lois crashes when a car tries to ram them off the road. David accompanies Lois to the hospital, where she lies wrapped in bandages, and he is shocked to discover an unnaturally missing limb and vacant eyes—an eerie hint that something has fundamentally altered her. The next day, Lois reappears as a mindless double, and she resumes dating a boy she previously dismissed. Laura and David visit the Gregsons again, witnessing the strange transformation in Sandy as well.

Following these oddities, Laura digs into the past and uncovers a grave: Steven’s first wife lies beneath the earth, and she is not herself. Returning home, Laura learns that Steven has taken David on a “shopping trip” just as Mary’s duplicate begins to emerge. Mary attacks Laura with a knife, but Laura manages to thwart the double; the malfunctioning copy collapses as the threat shifts. Laura then heads to the Men’s Association to locate David, and in a greenhouse she discovers the real Mary strapped to a table, surrounded by Steven and other men from the club, along with the bodies of the town’s children who are undergoing a bizarre bio-organic process to become docile drones. The children are replaced by their robot doubles as the procedure proceeds. David returns on his motorcycle, creating a diversion that buys Laura and Mary a chance to escape.

In the final confrontation, the Hardings narrowly evade capture as the building’s systems fail and an explosion erupts, destroying the Men’s Association, its members—even Steven—and the majority of the half-processed children. A couple of youths survive the blast, but the town’s machinery is left in ruins. Laura, Mary, and David flee Stepford, racing away from a town that has sacrificed its humanity for the illusion of perfection.