Product: Rosemary's Baby (El Bebe de Rosemary) [ NON-USA FORMAT, NTSC, Reg.4 Import - Latin America ] (1968)
Rating: 3.0
The spawn of Satan or just off her meds?
After almost selecting this movie on a few movie nights, Rosemary's Baby (1968) was the winning choice one recent winter's night. This psychological thriller film is a classic, if not only because it is somewhat dated. In any event, I enjoyed it.Mia Farrow plays a stay-at-home newly married wife that is wedded to a struggling, emotionally disconnected New York actor. They move into a new, posh apartment, and all seems well. The new neighbors are a tad nosy, but they're retirees and have nothing better to do than make small talk and stop by to check in on the young folks. The husband's acting career is hitting a few road blocks, but things start to turn around when he fortuitously lands a part after another actor is blinded. The couple decides it is time to get pregnant, and they begin to plot fertile times on a calendar.A different neighbor that the wife met in the building's laundry room commits suicide, but this seems like a freak occurrence at the time. Foreshadowing abounds.This is where it gets funky. Farrow's character gets essentially drugged by a dessert mousse provided by the old lady neighbor, and she has a trippy, fantastic nightmare. The nightmare seems real, and the viewer is not sure if it is a hoax or happening. In the dream, Farrow's character is brutally raped by a horrific devil-man as an ogling throng of naked onlookers (including the nosey neighbors) stands by.The nudity and violence in this particular scene had to be controversial in 1968. I was thrown by it, and I am sure an "X" rating would have followed if the MPAA were involved. (Note: The film narrowly preceded, by months, the MPAA rating system.)When the wife awakens from her dream-like state, she is deeply scratched on her right side. Her husband explains that he took the liberty of having sex with her while she was knocked out cold to not waste the monthly ovulation and that his nails were a little long. (Okay . . .?)And then things get really freaky. The wife is knocked up. But, her pregnancy is fraught with awful complications. First, she gets a terrible pixie haircut and becomes anorexic. (Wait, maybe those developments had nothing to do with the pregnancy?) Second, she suffers debilitating stomach pain. The retiree neighbors convince the couple to go to "their" obstetrician-to-the-Stars friend, and he tells the wife that the pain is nothing. "It'll go away." It doesn't. Third, she develops a craving for raw meat and liver.The neighbors also influence the wife to drink daily nutrient shakes with some bizarre ingredients. She complies, but not unflinchingly. After a while, she has second thoughts and decides to investigate the ingredients and the neighbors. As it turns out, something is rotten in Denmark.The remainder of the movie goes through "the reveal." We learn about the connection between the deceased laundry room neighbor and the nosy neighbors. The building has a unique and sordid history, suffice it to say. And the husband was not completely forthright about being rapey.I was going back and forth during this picture trying to determine whether Rosemary's pregnancy was of the evil Hell-spawn variety or whether she was simply off her meds and hallucinating the whole episode. I didn't figure it out until about ten minutes left. When you can take me that far, you've accomplished something.By today's horror standards this film is mild, but the story is entertaining and the plot has some intrigue. Go for it.