Product: Rosemary's Baby (El Bebe de Rosemary) [ NON-USA FORMAT, NTSC, Reg.4 Import - Latin America ] (1968)
Rating: 2.0
Some good parts, but mostly overrated and disappointing
Thinking about this film after watching it, it's a fairly decent piece of work. Until the ending. Still, the parallels between Rosemary's Baby and director Roman Polanski's personal life are striking.Mia Farrow plays a derivative 1960s Stepford wife impregnated whilst unconscious by the Prince of Darkness. As the basis for a horror movie, that's a good start. I'd have chosen perhaps Barry Goldwater, or maybe even Polanski circa his days when he himself raped a drugged girl, but the Devil makes nearly as good a villain.(How eerie then that Polanski's own wife would have her life and her pregnancy terminated by a bunch of Satan-worshippers just after this movie debuted.)Anyway, the movie is paced well and the story is interesting. I really enjoyed how she pieced together the evidence of a conspiracy. I half-expected to be asleep before it ended. But more than two hours later, I was on the edge of my seat watching Rosemary track down her newborn's thieves with a kitchen knife. And what would she do with that knife?! I won't spoil it for you, but when she enters the neighbor's apartment, you can turn your DVD player off. You won't miss a thing. In fact, any ending you dream up will be better than what actually happens.And that was the biggest problem with this film. Other people have mentioned it too -- the ending sucks. It really made me feel as though I'd wasted two hours of my life. I was hoping for a violent, vengeful ending, but no, nothing like that happens.Other things I didn't like... after Rosemary swears off Minnie's vitamin drinks, you see her drinking at least one more of them! What happened? And why does she keep visiting Dr Sapirstein after she realizes he's in on it?Plot holes you could drive a '68 Fleetwood hearse through.