Rosemary's Baby

Plot synopsis:
New York City, fall of 1965: Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse (Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes) are a young married couple who rent an apartment in the gothic and splendorous Bramford building in Manhattan. At first, their friend and current landlord Edward "Hutch" Hutchins (Maurice Evans) tries to dissuade them from doing so: the building has a rather unsavory past. It has been occupied by cannibal killers, Satanists and witches, such as the Trench Sisters, Keith Kennedy, Pearl Ames--and the sinister Adrian Marcato, who created a scandal in the late 1890s by claiming to have conjured "The Living Devil."Rosemary and Guy ignore him and move in. Guy is an actor with a fledging career. He's done plenty of TV plays and commercials, which have made him good money; but he wants great parts. Rosemary is a gentle soul, originally from Omaha, Nebraska, where she had been raised in a Catholic home and had attended convent school.As it is, Rosemary is estranged from her family, since they don't accept her marriage to Guy, who is not only an actor, but is also of mixed Jewish/Protestant upbringing. So her life in New York is all she has: she is a young housewife dedicated entirely to making a good home for her husband, whom she adores. She has a good circle of friends, but is at core sweetly naïve and lonely.One day in the laundry room, Rosemary makes the acquaintance of Terry Gionnoffrio (Victoria Vetri), a young former drug addict who was "rescued from the gutter" by an elderly, eccentric couple, Roman and Minnie Castevet (Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon). The Castavets's apartment had formerly been the front part of theirs, but is now separated by a partition.Her friendship with Terry is short-lived. A few days after Rosemary meets her, Terry plunges to her death from the bay window. She and Guy are walking home when they see the police surrounding Terry's corpse. The Castavets happen to be walking home, too. Presumably distraught, they strike up an acquaintance with the Woodhouses and later invite them to dinner. Rosemary becomes suspicious about their new elderly friends, particularly the way that Roman insists on speaking with Guy in private. Other things trouble her, too, such as when Guy's career gets a jump start when his main rival, Donald Baumgart, suddenly goes blind. Now all he cares about is his new play.But then suddenly, he decides he wants to become a father. Rosemary is thrilled.Evidently having studied her ovulation cycle himself, he announces the ideal "baby night." That evening, Minnie drops by to give them some chocolate mousse--or mouse as she calls it. Rosemary complains of a chalky undertaste, but Guy gets angry over her ingratitude. She eats part of it, and then furtively hides the rest in her napkin.Suddenly feeling disoriented after dinner, she passes out and has a bizarre dream. Rosemary is floating on a mattress in the sea, visits a cruise ship with the Kennedy's, has her wedding band removed, is carried through the Sistine Chapel, a brief shot of the linen closet with guy saying "easy, you got her too high" then she's back on the cruise ship naked and told by the skipper go below the deck and passes by a burning church and lays down on a mattress. The unsettling dream becomes a nightmare when she finds herself surrounded by naked elderly people, a statue figure of a bearded man staring down at her, and two men tie her to a bed. Then Jackie Kennedy soothes her for not feeling well. Guy approaches her bed, but then something that looks and feels inhuman brutally rapes her. "This is no dream!" she cries. "This is really happening!" Pope Paul VI, then visiting NYC and having mass at Yankee Stadium, comes to offer her absolution.When she wakes up, Rosemary is sore and scratched. Guy half-heartedly apologizes for having had her while she was out. Rosemary is angry, but "baby night" later proves successful. Dr. C.C. Hill (Charles Grodin)--referred to her by her girlfriend Elise Dunstan (Emmaline Henry)--confirms it.Upon hearing the news, the Castevets persuade Rosemary to go to Dr. Abraham Sapirstein (Ralph Bellamy), a prominent obstetrician who delivers all the upper crust babies in the city. Rosemary entrusts herself to him, accepting his odd advice and his recommendation of Minnie's strange "vitamin drinks." She develops pain during her first trimester, which causes her to lose weight and look emaciated, alarming Hutch--but not the doctor, Guy, the Castevets or their Saturday night gang of quaint old timers, including Dr. Stan Shand (Phil Leeds) and the obnoxious Laura-Louise McBurney (Patsy Kelly).As her pregnancy progresses, Rosemary feels a mounting sense of dread and angst. What is wrong with her? Why won't anyone acknowledge it? She decides to throw a party for her young friends, a qualification she insists upon. Her girlfriends--including Elise, Joan Jellico (Marianne Gordon) and Tiger Hoanigsen (Wende Wagner)--tell her she looks awful and that her pain is far from normal. She has to see a new doctor. Rosemary tells Guy, and they fight bitterly over it. But at the last minute she relents. The pain has suddenly stopped. And now she can feel the baby kicking.Rosemary's friend Hutch drops by for a visit; Roman and Minnie spot him, and suddenly Guy arrives home unexpectedly, as if they'd phoned him and urged him to rush back to the apartment. Hutch asks a lot of questions of Roman and Guy, and before he leaves the apartment, he realizes he's misplaced one of his gloves. Later, Hutch falls into a mysterious coma and dies. Rosemary receives a book from Hutch's companion, Grace Cardiff (Hanna Landy), which Hutch had intended to give to Rosemary personally. It's called "All of Them Witches," a study on witchcraft through the ages, featuring a chapter on Adrian Marcato (his appearance is familiar from the "dream") and his son, Steven. "The name is an anagram," is the final clue Hutch had left for her. Rosemary uses her Scrabble tiles to learn the horrible truth: Roman Castevet is Steven Marcato.Now she suspects Roman, Minnie and all their all-too-helpful friends are Satan worshipers. She visits Dr. Sapirstein and tells him she'll have no more to do with them. It's just as well, Sapirstein informs her: Roman is dying and would like to go away to Europe on a farewell tour. Rosie feels guilty about her suspicions, and when the time comes, bids them a fond farewell.But not all is what it seems. As her due date--June 28, 1966--nears, she learns one strange thing after the other. Could it be that Guy is involved with witches? Witches use babies for their rituals. Has he promised them the baby? She also learns that witches use the belongings of their intended victims to blind or kill them. On a hunch, she contacts Guy's former rival, Donald Baumgart, and gets him to reveal that Guy swapped ties with him just before he went blind.Distraught, Rosemary packs a suitcase and goes to Dr. Sapirstein to tell him what she's learned. But his secretary's off-hand remark reveals something horrible--the good doctor sometimes smells like tannis root, which she has learned is more commonly called Devil's Pepper. Dr. Sapirstein is a witch, too. He must be part of the plot against her. Next, Rosemary persuades Dr. Hill to see her. When she reveals her suspicions to him, he seems to take her seriously, and he gives her a sedative to help her sleep, but she is horrified when she awakens and find that Guy and Dr. Sapirstein have arrived to take her back home. She manages lock them out of the apartment, but before she can call for help, Guy and the others appear in the apartment, having entered by some other means. Rosemary tries to fight them off and she goes into labor. They have to force her down on her bed, while Sapirstein injects her with something to make her sleep.When she wakes, Guy tells her she has had a boy and that he's fine. But later, Sapirstein tells her that the baby is dead. The coven members sit with Rosemary, collecting her breast milk, and she thinks she can hear a baby crying through the walls of the apartment. She knows they have taken the baby, and she thinks they are planning to sacrifice it for one of their rituals.After a few days of pretending to cooperate and take her sedatives, Rosemary arms herself with a sharp butcher knife and finds the partition between her apartment and the apartment of the Castavets. Removing the closet interior, she finds the hidden doorway to the other apartment and goes inside. She looks at an oil painting of a burning church whispering "you got her too high", apparently having a flashback of the "dream". She discovers the entire coven sitting in the living room around a bassinet, including Minnie and Roman. A photo of Adrian Marcato is up above the mantle. There are others there, too, that Rosemary does not recognize, people that seem to have come from as far away as Japan. She approaches the bassinet and sees the baby for the first time, horrified that the baby has strange eyes. "He has his father's eyes," Roman tells her, and the coven tells her that Satan is the baby's father, not Guy. Guy tells her that he made an agreement with the coven to allow them to impregnate Rosemary with the spawn of the Devil in exchange for a successful acting career. Rosemary spits in his face. Now totally beaten, she collapses into a chair and Minnie brings her a cup of tea. Roman speaks more gently to her and encourages her to be the baby's mother, and although she hesitates at first, her maternal instincts win out, and the film ends as she rocks the baby's cradle and sings to him.

Tags: murder, horror, atmospheric, good versus evil, psychedelic, suspenseful

Review:
Roman Polanski knows this and utilizes it brilliantly, opening the film with stunning aerial shots of the skyline and focusing in on the ornate castle amongst the skyscrapers and tenements.The acting is fantastic, particularly Mia Farrow, who is the only person I can envision as Rosemary.
Horror as we know it came into being with the slasher flicks of the late 1970s and early 1980s; "Rosemary's Baby" is rather the kind of thing that the term "dark fantasy" was coined to describe, by people of taste who noticed that the word "horror" promised audiences something distinctly unpleasant and nasty.The film's construction is marvellous.
1968s "Rosemary's Baby" is a more sophisticated, less elegant thriller of the kind that Alfred Hitchcock patented, but it displays much more class and intelligence than the horror movies that would come out in its wake.
His earlier films like "Knife in the Water," "Repulsion" and "Dance of the Vampires," display the talents that would come to such a controlled mastery in "Rosemary's Baby."Polanski very faithfully adapts Ira Levin's novel to the screen so that the viewer is, just as the reader was, free to interpret the eerie events of the story as either reality or a depiction of an isolated woman's decent into madness.
That is where films really come alive and remain so.The Paramount DVD presents an excellent print of the movie that looks as if it were shot yesterday, along with extras that include new interviews with Polanski, executive producer Bob Evans and production designer Richard Sylbert, and a featurette from the time of the film's original release that really works as a good time capsule..
But for one thing, Polanski was not interested in making a shock-and-gore horror  Rosemary's Baby is all about the eerie atmosphere, the tension and the mystery.
There maybe moments that are not scary but as it goes on and you keep watching you start to get more and more creeped out-the atmosphere is what does it-even if someone were tuning in and didn't know this story already-the creepy feeling that something's very wrong is still there strongly from the beginning, strengthening in tone as you get deeper into the picture until by the end and the final few scenes your blown away.This is definitely more subtley and atmospherically creepy then a "boo" in your face scare fest like "scream".
It must mean that no part of the film could possibly(!) be better: the characters must be three-dimensional and engage the viewer (whether it be sympathetic or antagonistic); the performances must then bring these characters to life; the script must carry the plot without stale verbiage or cliché; the story itself must be believable or, in the case of horror or science fiction, create the conditions wherein the story can be seen as believable; the editing must make it not a scene too long nor a scene too short; the music must beand you get the point, right?
On each of these points, as well as any other you care to mention, 'Rosemary's Baby' easily qualifies.Having established himself as an up-and-coming European director in the 1960s with the likes of his debut 'Knife in the Water' (1962), Roman Polanski was brought to America to direct this horror movie about a secret society of Devil worshippers composed of wealthy and distinguished citizens manipulating a young woman into giving birth to the child of Satan in late-60's New York.
The film is the second part of Polanski's so-called "apartment trilogy" (the other parts being 'Repulsion (1965)' and 'The Tenant' (1976)) and as such begins with a shot of the Bramford apartment building (in reality the Dakota building which would later be the building John Lennon was shot in front of) which struggling actor Guy Woodhouse (Cassavetes) and his beautiful young wife Rosemary (Farrow) manage to bag a sizable apartment in.
Not long after (and with the "help" of a dizzying dream/nightmare sequence which is far more authentic than the famed Dali sequence in Hitchcock's 'Spellbound') Rosemary becomes pregnantbut her jubilation is short-lived and soon transforms into a disturbing paranoid nightmare.For a horror film it is refreshingly free of gore or ridiculous "jump-moments", and instead slowly chills the viewer through an atmosphere which becomes increasingly unnerving and claustrophobic as Rosemary discovers various clues which suggest that the Castevets may be involved in the darkest of dealings, and may have lured Guy into their ranks.
All it does it reinforce the moronic nature of the main character, and everything wrong with the movie to begin with.For this to be considered a classic, I can only assume there are a bunch of old timers reminiscing about the good times and living in denial about films like this.
"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.
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!
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.
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.
Ruth Gordon rightfully deserved that Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.So, if you're looking for a horror film with real scares, top-notch performances, a creepy soundtrack and a hell of a twisted ending look no further than Rosemary's Baby.5/5.
Rosemary's Baby is also very sexually aware of itself, and one could say with all validity was the bridge between censorship issues and what would follow in the glorious 70's.The movie was shot in the Dakota Buildings, and looks dreadfully eerie, director Roman Polanski makes New York like that too, which all fits with the mood of the film.
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.
I won't go into detail about the plot (though many people have probably heard about it without seeing it, like I had), but I will say that Rosemary's Baby is a good example of the horror film that doesn't rely on blood and gore to make an impression.
The Satanists, into whose complete power she is delivered by her husband, possess a wonderfully concealed menace, particulaly the obstetrician, a smiling, cold-eyed fascist.The once infamous scenes, such as Rosemary eating raw liver, lack the shock value they once had, and are filmed in such a documentary style that whatever horror they could have conveyed is lost on modern audiences.
Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby was adapted by Polish director Roman Polanski, who in his American directing debut, created a horror film that contained no gore, practically no blood, no characters with knives and other weapons.
Then one night, after having a drink that the "friendly" neighbor brings over, they make love to concieve, though that may or may not be how Rosemary sees it "this is not a dream, this is really happening!"  From then on, the film develops as Rosemary gets pregnant, is recommended a doctor (Ralph Bellamy) who may or may not be giving her the right medical advise, and as she enters her thirs trimester, she starts to realize something is fishy about her neighbors, and her un-born child.Like Polanski's 1965 film Repulsion, the viewer gets a feeling of something that one could feel in such horror films as Texas Chainsaw Massacre or, more appropriately, the Blair Witch Project- we feel scared or in a state os suspense not because of what we see, but of what we don't see and can't figure out.
Overall, Rosemary's Baby is a remarkable achievement in the genre, and in the very last moment in the end, the sense of acceptance Rosemary achieves is possibly the most scariest thing about it.As I mentioned in the one line summary, there are two shots that to me represent the kind of startling and, bizarrely, even funny double edged sword Polanski can pull in films like this (see also John Huston in Chinatown):  the one shot of the "devil" on top of Rosemary will make some drop their mouths open in shock, as did I, but I was sort of laughing at it too, in the manner of how she's so calm in the scene.
The characters, so well acted, are timeless types of horror:  The nosey old lady (Ruth Gordon) who eventually grows on you and, even after you find out what she's all about, you can't help but find her funny; the benign grandfatherly figure (Sidney Blackmer) and the trusted doctor (Ralph Bellemy) who surely wouldn't harm a fly; and the innocent Rosemary who becomes victim to a justified paranoia.
Once Rosemary's Baby takes off, it becomes a brilliant psychological and claustrophobic horror film.After a woman gets pregnant, she becomes increasingly suspicious as a result of bizarre coincidences and occurrences.
The events start off a bit slow at first but once the movie picks up, it keeps us on the edge of our seats and we're left on our seats dying to find out what happens next.This is definitely one of the more atmospheric, subtle, and creepy horror films out there.
Mya Farrow and John Cassavetes are terrific in the leads, probably delivering the most powerful performances in their careers; and their show is nearly stolen by the irritating, charming, creepy, lovable Ruth Gordon (who won a very deserved Oscar for her part).Very few films are as timeless as Rosemary's Baby, and few are as absorbing and effective.
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.
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.
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.
There, Guy and Rosemary Woodhouse (John Cassavetes and Mia Farrow) are befriended by Mr. and Mrs Castevet,(Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon) an elderly couple who take an abiding interest in their new neighbors.
If I had to pick the main reasons why this movie is so scary, and why it makes my hairs stick up so tall, it would have to be the camera work and directing, the story and script and how brilliantly it's played out, the simple feel and atmosphere, so unpredictable and creepy, the acting, done with malice and originality that I am still afraid to think about, and finally, the music.Krzysztof Komeda composes the most haunting, and definitive horror film score, a lullaby that produces goosebumps and that gets the mind racing through tunnels of fear, through darkness, acting as almost a prelude to what is to happen in the film.
Quite simply, one of the best horror movies ever made."Rosemary's Baby" is terrifying, and it remains terrifying every time I see it.
And the musical score, all plucked strings and jangling piano chords (except for the sinister lullaby that opens the film), is nerve-wracking.Because every element of the film comes together so well, this supernatural tale feels as realistic as it could possibly be, and one feels that if there is indeed such a thing as the coming of an Anti-Christ, it would happen something like this.With John Cassavetes, superbly slimy as the sell-out husband; Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer, as the Jewish grandma and grandpa from Hell (literally); Ralph Bellamy as a crooked doctor; and, most effectively, Maurice Evans, poor Rosemary's only ally.Any number of scenes could qualify as creepiest, but my personal favorite is the one in which Rosemary uses a Scrabble game set to make sense of an anagram.
This looks and feels like a seventies film but it's not!The role of Ruth Gordon as Minnie Castavet was played to perfection to once again give the audience that feeling that such nice neighbours would not be capable of doing something so horrible and give us the dilemma in which we are driven to thinking that it is Rosemary who is dillusional and is making all this up.
A masterpiece of horror""Polanski proved his film-making talents with Rosemary's Baby" "Terrifying"9/10.
Based upon the likewise-flawless novel by Ira Levin and virtually unaltered by Polanski, Rosemary's Baby is a work of art, a classic which stands alone to this day, never to be surpassed.Everyone knows the story by now; Mia Farrow is the sweet and innocent Rosemary Woodhouse who, along with her actor/husband Guy, finds the perfect apartment in New York.
And Exhibit A is Rosemary's B.Not enough fantastic things can be said about this work of cinematic art, which, from its opening sequence of rooftop credits, pans its way through your paranoid entrails, digging up dread for the true creepiness lying beneath -- the rooftops, your neighbor's smile, your husband's kiss and your own skin.Yes, it's perfect casting, with John Cassavetes' acting matching the brilliance of his directing, in his most sympathetically detestable screen performance, and Mia Farrow reaching a superbly nuanced balance of heartfelt fight and fear that, in retrospect, confounds, considering her Woody work, which was mostly limp and never came close to matching what she touches on here, at only 23.
That's partly why it consistently scores Top 10 rankings in the "best of" horror film lists regurgitated this time of year.But I'm here to tell you that Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby has a well-earned stake in the claim for "best of" and "top ten", no matter the genre or holiday.
Just like The Exorcist five years later, it knows exactly where to strike: our progeny.The directing and the atmosphere are all thanks to Polanski, but a lot of the film's excellence is due to the chillingly good performance from Mia Farrow, playing the role of Rosemary.
The best way I can describe this to horror fans is imagine this as a quasi-prequel to The Omen and you'll pretty much have this movie in a nutshell.Rosemary and her husband Guy find a beautiful new apartment to live in, they have nice neighbours if they're a bit nosy and they seem to get along all things considered.
Her performance is really good and the fact that she manages to balance her own doubt for most of the film is very effective.The music is also very memorable and creepy.Overall, this is a perfect adaptation of Ira Levin's book, Rosemary's Baby remains today one of the best horror movies, not for its use of gore, but for its use of tension and surprise..
Rosemary's Baby is one of the greatest horror film of that times.
Rosemary's Baby is often cited as being one of the best horror films ever made, and there is a good reason for this.
Great fun: a film that takes the best part of any horror movie and makes it the whole show.