Rosemary’s Baby (1968) Review

Tagline: It's not what you're expecting.

Rosemary’s Baby (1968) Review

 

The filmmaker William Castle was known for making silly, gimmicky horror pictures like House on Haunted Hill, but he acquired the rights to the novel Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin and produced it with the intent for it to be taken seriously. Roman Polanski was brought on to adapt the screenplay and direct, making it Polanski’s first American-produced film. Because of that, coupled with it being the first time he’d adapted a novel, Polanksi made an incredibly faithful adaptation. It ended up becoming a serious hit, eventually ranking as one of the best horror films of the 1960’s.

Rosemary Woodhouse and her partner Guy move in to a new apartment and get acquainted with the neighbors, the elderly couple Minnie and Roman Castevet. Guy likes them, but Rosemary finds them overly nosy, and her friend Hutch is suspicious of them. The thing about Guy is he’s kind of a jerk, and Rosemary just goes along with him, so when he declares they should have a baby, she’s excited about the idea. The night they plan on trying to make one, she has what she later thinks is a nightmare about being taken by a cult and being raped by Satan himself. She wakes up dazed and with scratches, but Guy brushes it off, telling her he got a bit rough with her in the night. Oh yeah, did I mention she passed out and was unconscious (according to him) during baby-making time, but he still went through with it? Like I said, Guy sucks. Rosemary gets pregnant, but her pregnancy has some complications, and Dr. Sapirstein (not her usual doc, he was recommended by the Castevets) tells her the pain she’s feeling will go away “soon.” As the Castevets continue to domineer Rosemary’s life, she begins to unravel the dark truth about them and the baby she’s carrying.

Rosemary’s Baby is billed as horror, but it’s really a drama first and foremost, and more of a psychological thriller, with a steady build of suspense. The horror boils down to two scenes in particular: when Rosemary is raped, and the final scene when she meets her offspring for the first time. It’s not really a spoiler to reveal those moments, given the premise has worked its way into pulp culture over the decades since it came out, and these scenes are absolutely some of the most iconic and disturbing from any movie of that era. The rape scene is disorienting and surreal, and the moment Rosemary lays eyes on her little antichrist newborn for the first time, staggering back with her hand over her mouth, is one you’re unlikely to forget. The rest of it, though, is slow-paced and not as memorable, but not to say it isn’t good.

The whole cast does a great job, and much of the acting feels very natural, which is one aspect of the film that I’m always surprised has aged so well. It feels like you’re watching real people, and the Castevets are so believable you can easily buy into the idea that Rosemary has unwittingly let them run her life. Mia Farrow is excellent as Rosemary, and as she comes to realize she’s become the unwitting mother of Satan’s baby thanks to these cult members living among her, you really sympathize with her.

Maybe it’s unfair to compare the two, but I cannot think of Rosemary’s Baby without also thinking of The Exorcist, and it’s for three main reasons: 1) because of the Satanic elements of both, 2) both are revered as being in the highest ranks of horror films not just for their time but for all-time, and 3) both are dramas at their core, but recognized primarily for being horror films. In my opinion, The Exorcist is far better in all the ways Rosemary’s Baby is cited as being so excellent—Exorcist is more original, better acted, better paced, and scarier. Not to take away from Rosemary Baby’s own unique strengths as an urban psychological horror story, but in the realm of early films to feature Satan, it isn’t the one that has endured the longest and strongest.  

Its few ageless strengths aside, I think Rosemary’s Baby is a little overrated and hasn’t aged quite as well as some of the other horror classics from around the same time. That being said, it still helped pave the way for a new era of horror, and is required viewing for any true horror fan, but the resonance it will have may vary.