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Rosemary's Baby More at IMDbPro »

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1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Tannis Anyone?, 20 March 2007

Author: jcnsoflorida from South Florida

Movies were constantly raising the bar for shocking in the late Sixties but few succeeded like this one. It was one of the last films officially 'Condemned' by the Catholic Legion of Decency. The dream sequences were easily the best of their time and continue to hold up well. Polanski's delight in the medium is palpable throughout but it never distracts from the narrative. The movie's texture --sophisticated Manhattan, but attainable-- resonates beautifully in the Christmas season scenes and later, when the temperature rises and Rosemary fumbles in a public phone booth. Note the gay friends at Ro and Guy's party. All the actors are in top form. Mia Farrow, lovely and vulnerable but crucially believable. Cassavettes as an ambitious actor, young but his biological clock is ticking. Did the Catholic Church get it right? This exemplifies the subversive power of cinema.

1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
don't trust anyone over 30, 6 January 2007

Author: tsf-1962 from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

"Rosemary's Baby" is the first generation gap horror movie. 60s "It" girl Mia Farrow plays a sweet young thing who moves into an exclusive Manhattan apartment building with her struggling actor husband John Cassavetes, who brings his usual edgy neurosis to the part. All their neighbors are elderly, and it turns out that they are also a coven of witches whose mission is to find the perfect mother for the devil's child. Rosemary, whose name is oddly reminiscent of the Virgin Mary, is the perfect choice, and her actor hubby is quite happy to sell his soul to Satan in return for help with his career. Like "The Manchurian Candidate" and "The Killers," "Rosemary's Baby" is one of those movies that captures a vivid snapshot of the paranoia and unrest of the 60s, a decade that began so promisingly but that ended in assassination, riot, and social unrest. Holocaust survivor Roman Polanski, who was soon to lose his pregnant wife Sharon Tate to the murderous Manson "family," directed, closely following Ira Levin's brilliant novel and in the process creating "Catholic horror." Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer are excellent as the nosy neighbors who turn out to be the devil's henchmen, as is Ralph Bellamy as the sinister doctor who's part of the conspiracy. Shakespearean veteran Sir Maurice Evans (Maurice on "Bewitched") plays the one sympathetic old person in the movie. "Rosemary's Baby" set a standard for Hollywood horror that has seldom been equalled and never excelled. Only "The Exorcist," "Jaws," and "The Shining" come close. Of films made during the last decade only "The Blair Witch Project" approaches the same standard.

1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Great fun: a film that takes the best part of any horror movie and makes it the whole show, 12 December 2006

Author: J. Spurlin from United States

I saw this at a revival theater a few years ago, and it was one of the best times I've had at the movies. I won't post any spoilers, but I recommend that you read nothing about this movie before you see it. Part of my pleasure was in expecting a certain event to occur earlier in the film: I thought "Rosemary's Baby" was going to be about a rampaging demon baby. This misconception helped keep me gripped in suspense until the end.

Now that I've watched it again on DVD, I can appreciate it as well as enjoy it. Here's why it was so fun: my favorite part of any horror film is first twenty minutes or so leading up to the first appearance of the monster. It doesn't matter how enjoyable the monster is; the best part is always the wait. This principle works in such diverse films as "Them!" (waiting for the killer ants), "King Kong" (… for the giant ape), "Psycho" (… for the shower scene) and so on. "Rosemary's Baby" is all wait, and it's marvelously effective. (But does a monster finally appear at the end? See the movie.)

Roman Polanski directs his own script based on Ira Levin's novel (which I read later and enjoyed); he is extremely clever at tantalizing us and dropping clues. Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and her actor-husband Guy (John Cassavetes) have moved into a new apartment in an old 19th century building which has a bad reputation for murders and strange deaths that occur on its premises. They befriend the old couple (Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer) next door who are nosy and eccentric but later seem more sinister. When Rosemary gets pregnant, she begins to suspect her neighbors are witches.

The casting is important. Rosemary must be weak-willed but not so passive that she becomes irritating or unsympathetic: Mia Farrow is perfect. Cassavetes plays an unsympathetic jerk yet allows us to see his moral struggle, mainly hidden from his wife (and only suggested to the audience). Sidney Blackmer seems gracious and charming, yet conveys something dark underneath. Ruth Gordon steals the show, a wacky oddball who becomes terrifying.

Roman Polanski delivers a slowly-paced film that screws our attention to the sticking place for two hours and fifteen minutes. You can't ask for more fun than that.

1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Sodom On The Hudson, 17 November 2006

Author: Bill Slocum (bill.slocum@gmail.com) from Norwalk, CT United States

Anyone else play with the name "Ira Levin" and come up with "Evil Rain"?

"Rosemarie's Baby" is so clever and audacious a film, it makes you want to come up with your own twists on its tightly-knotted storyline, a tale of a young woman named Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) who finds her idyllic Manhattan lifestyle shaken by a series of strange goings-on, not least of which involves her expected baby. Director Roman Polanski channels the best of Hitchcock and French New Wave cinema to come up with a new, ever-so-perverse, retelling of the Greatest Story Ever Told.

That Rosemarie's baby has something to do with Evil Incarnate is what everyone knows about this film going in. But as so many reviewers here note quite well, the film is not your conventional horror flick, but something quite different, that uses atmosphere and mood to weave an eerie spell to stay with you long after the film is over.

Seeing the film once is enough, but seeing it again really brings out the humor and pathos in this strange tale. Lines like the one Rosemarie says to her husband, Guy (John Cassavetes), when she feels her baby kicking and notices he's shy about putting his hand on her belly: "Don't be scared, it won't bite." Or the strange girl Rosemary meets in the laundry room of the "Black Bram," full of gratitude to the couple that took her in. "Real grandparents," the girl calls them. "They picked me up off the sidewalk." The sidewalk is where she ends up, though, a few minutes later, one of the first signs something's wrong.

Minutely faithful to Ira Levin's novel, Polanski nevertheless frames his film in such an imaginative way as to make it feel alive, and thus more chilling as it goes on, with its attention to Upper East Side decor, summer dresses that resemble paisley sofa covers, and of course the baroque architecture of the Bramford, i.e. the real-life Dakota apartments, whose own unhappy history give this film a guilty kick.

That's too bad, because the film would stand up as well without any tragic real-life subtext. Farrow's performance (shades of Jean Seberg) is an amazing display of an actress in complete control as her character spins farther out of it. Though she was deprived of so much as an Oscar nomination (at least the Golden Globes weren't as asleep at the wheel), Ruth Gordon did win an Oscar playing a neighbor whose amiable kookiness conceals nasty depth, the best of a supporting cast that doesn't miss a trick, whether it be Ralph Bellamy as an unorthodox obstetrician or Elisha Cook as a fey doorman.

The only performance many have caveats about is Cassavetes. Would not Robert Redford had worked better in the role of the struggling, amoral actor? Yet I find myself liking Cassavetes better the more I watch this film, his guilty laughter as he urges Rosemary to finish her chocolate "mouse" and wear her smelly charm. He really nails a deeper sense of evil on offer, with his callous comments to Rosemary and his nasty way with a joke, at peace with a world that can ask, on the cover of Time magazine: "Is God Dead?" Existential dread is at the heart of this film, and Guy presents a post-Christian figure that Cassavetes nails down from beginning to end.

Polanski and Farrow give the best work. He frames every shot with the kind of depth and focus that reminds you of Hitchcock at his peak, while she, eerily resembling Twiggy, sets a standard for '60s glamour and acting prowess that makes you wonder how she failed to find worthy projects in the next decade. It wasn't really until the 1980s, as Woody Allen's muse, that she had the opportunity to develop a real body of work. It's like this film had some kind of curse on it.

Of course, talking about curses and "Rosemary's Baby" makes you realize Mia got off rather lightly in comparison. My random music machine just played selections from John Lennon and Frank Sinatra in tandem, and now I really have the creeps. So will you, when you give this a chance. Creepiness is a harder trick to pull off in movies than raw shock, and here is a film that sets a standard few, if any, have come close to matching.

1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Brilliantly done, 25 June 2006
Author: hybridsun from United States

A great film that personifies the totally and wild experimentation of the late 60's via Roman Polanksi-(that would be tame today nearly 40 years later) Which is nonetheless timeless, with great performances by all -Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon and Sydney Blackmer.

It rates with other tripped out films of the late 60's- rating with such as 2001: A Space Oydessy.

Done very well filmed at the Dakota apartments in NYC and with a great late 1960's attitude, that today nearly 40 years later remains a classic Gothic horror story. One on the greatest horror films ever done, that us done with a great amount of aplomb.

1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
What a creepy movie!, 17 June 2006

Author: jerrythecow from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I don't care how "scary" and "exiting" and "heart-pounding" movies are today: This is by far the scariest! Rosemary's baby is about a couple that buys a house with a mysterious past. After becoming pregnant, Rosemary (Mia Farrow) begins to suspect that everybody in the building, including her husband (John Cassavetes), is a Satan-worshiping, anti-Christian witch. Is she imagining it, or is it real? And if it is, will she be able to save her baby? The movie does start out slow, and doesn't really pick up until she becomes pregnant. Also, some of it is boring, and not all is very scary. But the parts that are: *shiver*! Roman Polanski is a good director of horror. I did not think much of the ending was good, but my favorite line is when Minnie Castavet(Ruth Gordon) remarks: "He chose you, honey! From all the women in the world to be the mother of his only living son!" Obviously playing on the Jesus story, Minnie says this in her strong, New York accent, making the situation almost comical.

All in all, a very creepy movie!

1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
A classic in the true sense of the word., 12 May 2006

Author: Keith Williamson from Milton Keynes, United Kingdom

I have never been frightened by gore but can be made to jump by something as simple as a door banging (The Others and The Bone Collector for example). The mind can conjure up images which are far more frightening that anything ever seen on film and if the mind is nudged along a certain path and given suggestions then it is more than capable in filling in the gaps and creating dark and scary landscapes to get lost in.

This film slowly peals away layers of normality so that it is all too easy to accept what is portrayed (or rather for most of the time hinted at) and as the layers are pealed away so more and more suspense is loaded upon the viewer.

It is an extremely well crafted film (in every area: the script, the direction, the cinema photography, the acting and the music score) and personally one of my favourites and in my opinion certainly one of the best of its kind. It shows that sometime more (a lot more) can be achieved by leaving things out rather than putting them in and those directors who carry on insisting to load their films with tomatoes ketchup would do well to sit down and really study this film.

1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
A masterpiece of mood, 22 April 2006

Author: Jonny_Numb from Hellfudge, Pennsylvania

Like "The Silence of the Lambs," "Rosemary's Baby" is a horror film that is so justifiably praised that it's a pretty futile effort to attempt to find something that hasn't been said about it before, and better. Until recently, it had been many years since I'd seen the film, and upon revisiting it (with a newfound appreciation for director Roman Polanski), was thoroughly impressed.

The story is simple and ingenious, and hooks us from the start: Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) and her actor husband, Guy (John Cassavetes) move into an upscale New York apartment complex attract the attention of their kind yet invasive neighbors; shortly after, Rosemary becomes pregnant and grows increasingly concerned that the residents are plotting against her. Polanski would revisit this type of paranoia (albeit through male eyes) in "The Tenant"; "Rosemary's Baby" takes a similarly subjective approach to the story, telling it largely through the perspective of the title character--and Mia Farrow is incredibly good at conveying pain, sorrow, fear, and submission.

In addition to structuring suspense well, Polanski also gives the film a sense of patriarchal commentary: the husband is cunning, cocky, self-centered, and manipulative; ditto the loathsome Dr. Saperstien (Ralph Bellamy) who insists that Rosemary stop reading books that might cause worry. Throughout the film, Rosemary is presented as a passive, soft-spoken wallflower, easily put in her place by the male figures in her life; even when she uncovers the conspiracy around her, everyone is so firmly pitted against her that her efforts become meaningless in the face of the inevitable. Polanski makes us pity Rosemary and loathe the occult conspirators, but gives us a conclusion that drips of irony from all angles--in a sense, a great injustice is perpetrated, then accepted.

With "Rosemary's Baby," Polanski delivers a masterpiece of mood and subtle scares without a reliance on blood and guts. Strong performances and a fine story contribute to making this a gem of the genre.

1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Pure period style suspense fun, 21 March 2006
Author: (futures@exis.net) from Ronn Ives/FUTURES Antiques, Norfolk, VA.

"Rosemary's Baby" (1968): Even the very young & cute Mia Farrow could barely carry off that "Twiggy" look of 1965-68, and yes, there are other "period" clues in this film: the camera work has that "trippiness" when she's (possibly) in another consciousness, the music has a druggy sound to it at times, the "high fashion" was often at a low point...but this film is STILL a great exercise in PARANOIA. WHO is imagining WHAT? WHY is she suspecting THAT? Is Rosemary nuts? If not, are THEY in on it? John Cassevettes plays her patient husband, the crazy Ruth Gordon who won the Oscar for her role, as one of their neighbors, many character actors you'll recognize...and they all add up to an increasingly tense, psychological-horror film that shook up EVERYONE in 1968. Pure period style fun.

1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
A Great Film, 5 January 2006

Author: Bindweed6 from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I read the book by Ira Levin before I saw the movie, and then, when I watched it, the film visuals almost perfectly matched the ones I had pictured in my mind, so I was consistently given chills down my spine. And it seems like barely any dialogue or plot points were cut out (it'd be almost impossible to cut out any of the plot because Levin wrote such a tightly plotted and suspenseful book.) Polanski's direction is great, and Mia Farrow made a perfect Rosemary. The final scene is one of my favorites ever, when she's sneaking to the Castavet's apartment to get back her baby with the knife, and all the old satanists are standing around, and she sees the baby's amber eyes, and screams, "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HIS EYES?!?" *shiver*. Beautiful.

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