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377 reviews in total

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Chilling performance, 3 January 2006

Author: pimpdawg55566678 from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The movie was pretty good. The tone and mood is set soon as the credits start with an eery lullaby. It starts off farely normal Guy and Rosemary Woodhouse are looking for a new place and find it. The residents seem like nice elderly people. It is after the rape by Satan nightmare however that things begin to get chilling. Rosemary switches doctor by recommendation by her elderly neighbors (who have befriended her husband more then her) She begins to experience complications such as pain, and nautiosness. Her friend Hutch realises something is amiss right off the bat and points it out to her. That friend goes into acoma the next day and dies later on. However it is because of this friend that Rosemary unravels the plot set against her. She is ultimately betrayed by those she trust. It's at this point that Farrow shines beyond all belief.

All in all the movie is chilling mainly because of the performance by Farrow. I am not so sure it lived up to the hype but reguardless it was worth the two hours.

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
One of the scariest films ever, 27 February 2003
Author: bregund from San Francisco

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

There are spoilers in this review.

Rosemary's Baby sits on the cusp of changing Hollywood filmmaking; abandoning the corny westerns and drawing-room banter of 1950s films that basically mimic stage performances, it explodes into the 1960s like some crazy psychedelic dream. The Miracle Worker, The Graduate, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Bonnie and Clyde, Cool Hand Luke: the 1960s were a movie renaissance for the American public. It must have been a very exciting time if you were a moviegoer, and Rosemary's Baby belongs in the same vein of exciting films.

Where do I begin? The fundamental strength of this film is its believability, and it accomplishes it with flow. This film effortlessly captures the natural flow between man and wife, in a way that no film prior to it ever did. Cassavettes's smoldering expression and smoky observations as Guy play so easily against Farrow's waifish, wide-eyed Rosemary that it's easy to imagine they might have been married in real life. It is so easy to see these people as real characters, because we are given their strengths and faults, we see them quarrelling and kissing, just like real life. It is this strength of reality that pulls along the rest of the film; when things turn unreal, that's when the real terror begins. Polanski brilliantly takes this sense of unreality to the limit.

Polanski's genius lies in taking Hollywood cliches and putting a contemporary spin on them: witches no longer wear long black clothes and pointy hats, they are an annoying old woman and a pie-faced old man living in a run-down gothic apartment building in New York. The creepy Dakota apartment building is the iconic haunted house of everyone's collective subconscious, brought into contemporary 1960s city living. The building is at first serene but becomes more sinister as the film progresses. Guy and Rosemary renovate their new flat, brightening it with gallons of white paint and pre-Martha Stewart white linens, but like MS herself, there is something odd lingering underneath the surface.

Ruth Gordon steals the movie. She nails the part of Minnie Castevet with such self-assured manic demeanor that it is difficult to imagine anyone else in the role. She gleefully destroys the cliche of the Halloween-style Margaret Hamilton witch, and instead gives us a witch who looks like a train wreck. Dressed like a clown with too much makeup, forcing her nutrition drinks down Rosemary's throat, barging into Rosemary's apartment, displaying terrible table manners, and doing her best to meddle in every detail of Rosemary's life, she is at once annoying and fascinating; who would ever think a witch could actually be irritating?

By the end of the film, Cassavettes's ambitious actor Guy Woodhouse is a pathetic, soulless automaton, clearly the film's villain for selling his wife's body to the witches in order to advance his career. His deception is laid bare for all the world to see, and made all the more abject with his inability to see anything wrong with the unholy agreement. I wonder how many other actors would do the same thing.

There is more fear in the unknown than in the known; special effects can only do so much to capture the fear that we all share, but Rosemary's Baby, much like the Exorcist and the Blair Witch Project, uses huge doses of suggestion rather than relying solely on special effects. The truly frightening things are left to the imagination, for instance when Rosemary looks at the baby and shrieks `What have you done to his eyes?', we don't need to see them, we know they're frightening because of her reaction.

After watching this film, it's easy to see where The Exorcist gained most of its inspiration, although Rosemary's European director gives us an ending that is perfectly chilling and uncompromisingly pessimistic, while the Exorcist continues as though nothing ever happened.

This is a must-see film.

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Holds up, could have been filmed yesterday., 30 January 2003

Author: TheTwistedLiver from Chicago

A great film from the mind of Roman Polanski, one of the masters of twentieth century suspense. Over the course of time, this film has stood the test, remaining horrifying to an entirely new audience. The suspense is fantastic, and the characters well developed. Without a doubt, one of the films that should be on every movie fans list.

Mia Farrow plays an innocent, naive woman, who mature's overnight, in lieu of her motherly instinct in reaction to losing her child. The fear of losing her baby is countered only by the realization that keeping it possibly entails endangering the fate of the human race.

an interesting note about this film, Mia farrow was going to walk off the production because her then husband Frank Sinatra wanted her to quit. Robert Evans the producer told her that the buzz on the street was she would win the Oscar for best actress. Her response was "Frank who?"

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
WHY ISN't THIS FILM ON THE TOP 250 LIST???, 10 May 2002

Author: Miguel Cane (stepford@yahoo.com) from Mexico

There are lots and lots of films on that list, but somehow this masterpiece of modern cinema, that has influenced more than any film on its genre, has not even scratched the surface of it. Why is this? How unfair! I wonder...

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Roman Polanski directs one of the greatest, if not the greatest suspense/thrillers of all time!, 9 December 2000

Author: (famsmith@swbell.net) from Dallas, Tx

Sometimes a film comes along that redeems the art form that is cinema. Rosemary's Baby is one of those films. In Rosemary's Baby the cinematic content is the priority, the auteur understands what is important is not the story as it is seen on paper, but the story as it is told visually. Polanski proves in this film that when he is on top there is none greater. Polanski takes a remote locale to create in a sense a claustrophobic atmosphere, and understands both cinematography and the audience so well that he uses a barrage of imagery to play the audience like a violin creating a response of pure terror. However, the amazing thing about this film is that it does even the little things so well. For example, this film contains the best dream sequences I've ever seen. True, Hitchcock created some of the most fascinating and artisitc dream sequences visually, but none of them came nearly as close to creating what the dream state is truly like. Many directors lack a sense of daring, they are so worried about appeasing the audience that they cease to challenge them. Polanski challenges the audience ten times a frame, he creates outrage by allowing chaos to reign, and displays complete disregard for structure/order as the primary priority. Polanski has always struck me as a balance between a director of the French New Wave style and a student of Hitchcock which supplies him with an amazing combination of freedom and precision. The performances in this film are outstanding all around. Polanski to me is one of the few directors who is completely fearless when it comes to taking risks. I don't believe I've ever seen another director who possesses and expresses such dual qualities so effortlessly. Polanski feels no obligation to tradition, but simultaneously has an enormous amount of respect for the masters who came before him. There is also a great balance between the fantastic and the realistic in this film, drawing a very thin line between both, and forcing the audience to question the fantastic realities and the realistic fantasies. They say that the great artists know the rules, but can get away with breaking them because they realize that it is something far beyond rules that makes their medium what it is, and I can think of few filmmaker's who exemplify this to same extent as Polanski.

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3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
rosemary's baby, 11 May 2011

Author: incentive_girl (incentive_girl@hotmail.com) from Turkey

When I started to watch Rosemary's Baby, I thought it was an ordinary baby story. But it was not like that. As soon as you begin to watch, you feel that some mystic things will happen. Rosemary and Guy moved a new apartment where some bad things had happened. They wanted to have a baby.

And also they had a strange neighbors. Two people both of them are old. Rosemary had a good relationship with them. But after a while Rosemary learned that she had a baby. She had a good doctor. But their strange neighbor suggest them a new doctor. Guy relied on them so he accepted this suggestion. After these things, Rosemary started to have strange dreams. Everything begins with these dreams that she was confused about that. In the end she had a strange baby who was called Satan by her neighbor and also her husband. It was a group that disobey and ignore the God. She wanted to save her baby from these bad people she understood their intention but it was too late. They had already captured her baby.

Actually, the movie includes something mystic and horror. You feel terrible in some spot. I was affected by Rosemary's physical appearance and also her psychology. At some point you feel pity about her due to the fact that she did not look well. And another thing that was affected me is that when rosemary gave birth they put it in a black cradle. Whatever happened, she was a mother. When she saw it in a cradle she was sorry, she shake its cradle even if it was not a normal baby.

Last but not least, nobody believed her and only one person believed her.Truth was much horrific. If you like these kind of movies I mean sometimes you feel horrifying, mercy, sorry, mystic, it would be a good choice. I like its team and cast. They are good at their jobs. I give 7 out of ten. I hope you have a chance to watch it.

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3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Year of the Devil, 16 October 2008

Author: sol1218 from brooklyn NY

(There are Spoilers) One of the best horror movies ever made with almost no blood or splatters scenes at all with the exception of Terry, Victoria Vetri, jumping, off camera, to her death form the seventh floor of the Bramford Building. "Rosemary' Baby" has to do with the most darkest fears one can conjure up in a movie book as well as in one's own mind; The return of Satan-the Devil-on earth and everything that goes along with him.

It's early October 1965 and the Pope, Pope Paul VI, has made a historical visit to the US and is in the process of giving a sermon, to some 60,000 people, at New York's Yankee Stadium. It's also the time designated by a coven of Devil worshiping witches for the Devil's offspring, to be named Adrian, to be conceived by the unsuspecting and Catholic observant Rosemary Woodhouse, Mia Farrow.

Since Rosemary and her actor husband Guy, John Cassavetes, moved into the creepy Bramford Building they've become very friendly with the elderly couple who lives next door to their apartment Roman and Minnie Castevet, Sidney Blackman & Ruth Roman. Even though Rosemary is not that taken in by the Castevets eccentric and somewhat wired behaviors her husband Guy is. Guy a struggling actor was desperately trying to get a part in a play that the far more talented Donald Baumgart, Tony Curtis, got. After Guy's involvement with the Castevets Baumgart suddenly lost his sight opening the door for another actor to replace him: Guy Woodhouse!

The movie starts to grow and accelerate, together with Rosemary's pregnancy, in both tension as well as curiosity as she becomes very frail and sickly as the day of the "blessed event", June 28, 1966, is soon to arrive. Feeling that something just isn't right Rosmary has been haunted since her night of conception, October 5/6 1965, it that she feels that it's wasn't Guy who fathered her now soon to be born child but the Devil or Satan,played by Clay Tanner, himself!

Despite the movie's many subplots, all centered around Rosemary's pregnancy and birth to her child, the film is never confusing in that they, the subplots, all come together in the film's final and shocking ten or so minutes! The Woodhouse's at first had no idea to what evil existed right at their front doorsteps! Soon they would become in their associations with the Castevets the very central, and rotten, core of it!

It was family friend Edward "Hutch" Hutchins, Maurice Evens, who knew not only the history of the eerie Bramford Building but that of one of its infamous tenants Steven Marcato. It was also that knowledge that lead to Hutch falling into a deep coma that he never came out of!

****SPOILER ALERT**** It was Marcato who was killed by an angry New York mob some 80 years ago for secretly practicing witchcraft! It was also Marcato who had a son who had since changed, or rearranged, his name and became a man of the world as well as, in his many travels, secretly gotten himself involved with the occult like his father did! That person is non other then the Woodhouse's kindly and harmless looking next door neighbor Roman Castevet himself!

Making a pact with the Devil has its price and the price that Guy Woodhouse paid for bringing him, in Guy allowing Satan to rape his wife Rosemary, out of the depths of Hell and into the unsuspecting world above was more that it was worth. Guy's career in both TV and the movies, as well as the theater, took off like a shot but in reality he ended up damned for all eternity. As for poor Rosemany in the end after seeing what her new born son really looked like, and what he represented, it was both her goodness, in Rosemary's Christian beliefs, and maternal instincts that eventually overrode her horror and revulsion in what she was forced, by her husband Guy and the Castevets, to unknowingly participate in. As the movie ends Rosemary is heard humming the lullaby theme of the movie as she's gently and tenderly rocking the "cute" little Devil, her son Adrian, to sleep!

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3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Fun stuff, deluxe., 9 July 2008

Author: raimund-berger from Switzerland

People seem to approach this as being a horror movie. Well, I guess it's not. And certainly not in days where the genre has been fully occupied by more or less brain dead slasher flicks.

So to be perfectly clear, this movie is more or less typical Polanski style apartment suspense stuff, with the usual, well balanced mixture of paranoia and sarcasm. And as such it's outstandingly playful, entertaining and well crafted.

Most notable of course are the character portrayals, and those many special moments one immediately realizes were created not to drive the story, further the potential success of the movie or the fame of anybody involved, but to plainly create atmosphere and entertain us.

Just take the suicide sequence, the outfits in which Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer come strolling down the street and the following dialog about cleaning windows at night, all in face of a dead body. If I ever saw sarcasm working on screen, I'd say it was here.

And the shot of Gordon holding her spectacles up to further inspect that young women who might know more about the relations of the deceased than herself - this potentially being a threat of course. Clearly, this stuff borders on being cartoonish, but Polanski - and Gordon - truly walk the line here.

Also a favorite of mine, their first dinner and Farrow's looking back into the dining room while helping out in the kitchen - all just quiescence, only the tobacco smoke hinting at people sitting around the corner and maybe talking about what? Ample space for our fantasy to fill in, deliberately given to us.

Gordon's performance here as house invading, chit chatting ever inquisitive elderly lady is a blast anyway. To me, one of the most memorable captured on screen, ever. Very much notable also Cassavetes, extending the evasiveness of his character to almost avoiding the camera. Rarely seen amongst actors I'd say, and giving a nice opaqueness to his performance.

I could go on of course, likely for hours and without even mentioning classics like the phone booth sequence. To me, this, Chinatown and Le Locataire comprise Polanski's classic period, and are ample evidence of what a really exceptional Hollywood studio director he was and could further have been - if he hadn't blown it himself. Very regrettable, really.

Highly recommended, to the true film fan.

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3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Masterpiece of supernatural suspense., 31 October 2007

Author: brefane from United States

Polanski's first American film is one of the most enduring films of the 60's. Well-received when released in 1968, Rosemary's Baby is that rare film that grows more impressive with repeated viewings. It's a near perfect, multi-layered classic that mixes psychological horror with supernatural suspense while being funny, scary, and ironic. No remake could ever come close and the spate of films it inspired, most notably the The Exorcist and The Omen, pale by comparison. Expertly directed by Polanski, the film is perfectly cast and splendidly acted by all. Ruth Gordon won the Oscar for supporting actress, but Farrow, who is in every scene, wasn't even nominated for her iconic portrayal. The entire film is told from Rosemary's point of view. The growing sense of menace and paranoia is beautifully handled, and the audience is with Farrow and her unborn child every step of the way. On one level Rosemary's Baby is the ultimate tribute to motherhood. A winner any way you look at it. Consider it essential viewing. Among others, French film director Francois Truffaut expressed great admiration for the film, and Rosemary's Baby deserved a place on the AFI's top 100.

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3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
This is classic Ira Levin., 13 August 2005

Author: Lee Eisenberg (eisenberg.lee@gmail.com) from Portland, Oregon, USA

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

It doesn't suffice to call "Rosemary's Baby" a horror film; that implies something corny. "Rosemary's Baby" is anything but corny. It is actually creepy. The plot of course has weak-looking Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) getting pregnant and discovering that the father is Satan; Rosemary's husband Guy (John Cassavetes) is colluding with Satan-worshipping neighbors Roman (Sidney Blackmer) and Minnie Castevet (Ruth Gordon) so that he can get a part in a play. This has the very distinct Ira Levin feel in the way that "The Stepford Wives" and "The Boys from Brazil" did: everything looks normal, but as the story progresses, you begin to get the feeling that something's not right, and then you find out the horrible truth.

Here's something that I noticed about the movie (maybe it was just a coincidence): the name Roman Castevet. The first name brings to mind director Roman Polanski, and the last name brings to my mind John Cassavetes. But like I said, that's probably just a pure coincidence. I think that my favorite scene is when Rosemary is playing with the Scrabble tiles and finds out about the connection with Adrian Marcato.

And one more thing. This might be the only thing in the whole movie that gives it a slightly non-horrific, even remotely silly flavor: the woman who played Elise Dunstan was Emmaline Henry, better known as Amanda Bellows on "I Dream of Jeannie". Ruth Gordon later co-starred with an "IDOJ" cast member in 1976's zany "The Big Bus" (which co-starred Larry Hagman). Well...

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