HoopTober 8: Mosquito Takes Mandragon

Movie 33
1st of 4 films from your birth year

The really odd thing about The Stepford Wives is it's a film that no one seems to talk about much except as some kind of universal benchmark for a certain sort of creepy storyline i.e. "It's like a Stepford Wives kinda thing". Maybe that's just because this movie is a little old now (yeah, as old as I am, just in case you didn't clock the HoopTober rule this one applies to). Or I suppose folks could be talking about the remake with Nicole Kidman which I've never seen and maybe never will because it also stars Better Midler and there's only so much horror I can take (sorry - maybe that's harsh on Midler, but my mum listened to that godawfully God-y song, "From a Distance", about twenty thousand times when I was a kid and trapped in the car with her and I can never forgive Midler for that shit).

Anyway, this certainly seems to have some kind of totemic power as a film, but I had to stream this from a (possibly illegal - gasp) source because I couldn't find a decent "official" version of it anywhere, either physical or streaming. So it certainly seems to have faded into some kind of obscurity despite its name still being dropped here and there.

I have to say, I was finding this just a little too uninterested in gaining plot momentum throughout the first hour or so. This thing is in no fucking hurry at all, and despite really enjoying the performances from a cast I was singularly unfamiliar with - apart from Katharine Ross who I seem to have developed a bit of a thing for about 50 years later than everyone else - I was getting pretty fidgety. I mean, the set up is good but, you know, I get it. There's something off with this men's association and who knows what sort of insidious skulduggery they're up to.

By the second hour, though, Bryan Forbes rouses himself from his stupour and the movie finally kicks into gear. And it's good - it's really fucking good. That slightly jazzy Michael Small score just starts slowly amping up the dread as the plot finally kicks into gear - those high piano notes start tinkling and jangling a little discordantly for things to be "OK" here. I mean, we knew they weren't before that, but we knew that intellectually. Small's music means we start to know it in our gut.

Only we don't really, do we? Because of course, things are far more horrific here than we ever could have imagined. Now, I don't know how I managed it, but I had genuinely never heard about the final twist of this film and what it entails, and by the time we get to those final 15 minutes or so, my jaw was on the floor. Maybe this has already been ruined for 90% of the population, but let me tell you, coming into this cold was a stroke of the mightiest good fortune for me.

Despite knowing I'm probably the last person to the party, I still don't want to spoil it. But I'll all say is: the boobs. That shot of the boobs... I literally shouted out "OH MY GOD HER TITS ARE BIGGER TOO!!!!" and I felt like applauding. I realise that sentence makes me sound like some kind of over-excited pervert (the truth hurts) but watch the movie and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Ira Levin. He really knew what fucking bastards husbands can be to their wives, didn't he? I'm really interested in hearing some more female perspectives on this and Rosemary's Baby because it feels like these should be stories written by women - but there's probably a world of nuance I'm oblivious to, there. Still though - the brutality of the satire in these two stories is pretty breathtaking.

This is SO worth enduring the slow beginning for. Trust me. Great film.