EDITOR’S NOTE: The Stepford Children was on the CBS Late Movie on June 29, 1988.

The second of three TV movie sequels — there was also Revenge of the Stepford Wives, directed by Robert Fuest, and The Stepford Husbands — The Stepford Children is based on the Ira Levin novel The Stepford Wives and the films that came after.

Laura and Steven Harding (Barbara Eden and Don Murray) have brought their kids, David (Randall Batinkoff) and Mary (Tammy Lauren), to Stepford, Connecticut, the same place where Steven’s first wife died. Laura just wants to become a lawyer, but Steven joins the Men’s Association, which is still turning wives into robots. It’s also turning the kids into homework-obsessed drones.

David and neighbor girl Lois (Debbie Barker) start hanging out, as they both love motorcycles. Laura becomes friends with Lois’ mom, Sandy (Sharon Spelman). And she soon learns that while she lets her kids be who they want to be, her husband seems obsessed with making them perfect.

During a school dance, everyone starts to dance to big band standards and when David and Mary switch it up to some rock and roll, they do more than lose control. They freak out and the cops have to come, as the Stepford Children have not been programmed for 80s music. All the men of Stepford chase Lois, causing a motorcycle crash and then David sees them removing her arms at the hospital. The next day, she shows up brand new and dumps him.

A movie that somehow has “replacement Ginger” Judith Baldwin, James Coco, Dick Butkis and Hedwig and the Angry Inch star John Cameron Mitchell all in it? Yes, and it ends in the most astounding of ways, as the entire town must die for the humans to live.

Directed by Alan J. Levi and written by William Bleich, this is way more entertaining than you’d expect. Usually, I say fuck those kids, but this time I rooted for them.

You can download this from the Internet Archive.