Imagine „Rosemary‘s Baby,“ but as a made-for-TV sci-fi film starring Barbara Eden and written by Richard Matheson. That‘s „The Stranger Within.”
Eden plays a woman who gets pregnant even though her husband had a vasectomy. He had that because it’s dangerous for her to get pregnant. She tries to abort it but it’s like some outside force prevents it from happening. Is she the 1970s version of Mary and the force is God? No, it’s aliens.
The expecting mother also begins to act strangely. She was the perfect housewife but now she leaves dishes out, is always angry, craves salt, goes on hikes and reads books like she is Kim Basinger in “My Stepmother is an Alien.” Could it be pregnancy hormones? No, it’s aliens.
Now, aliens weren’t an unknown subject in 1974, however, there hadn’t been a dramatic take on alien abduction until “The Stranger Within.” The first public case, the one with Betty and Barney Hill in 1961, wouldn’t be adopted into a TV movie until 1975.
The idea of aliens breeding with human became a mainstream idea in the 1990s thanks to “The X-Files,” but was actually first done by Matheson. Always a pioneer, he wrote the novelette this film was based on in 1953. John Wyndham used the idea in 1957 for his novel “The Midwich Cuckoos,” which was first adapted in 1960 as “Village of the Damned,” which spawned a sequel. The 90s John Carpenter remake was the only adaptation that embraced the alien factor, though.
The thing about 70s made-for-TV movies is that they are calm and cozy. They aren’t masterpieces of acting or filmmaking (at least none I’ve seen) but they have a comforting vibe, even when about alien foetuses controlling their expecting mothers. That’s why I’ll always have a soft spot for them and rate them higher than they, probably, deserve.
Would this have been better suited as a fantastic episode of “The Outer Limits”? Yes. Am I glad they rather made it into a full melodramatic 70s TV movie? Also, yes.
