Rosemary’s Baby

“Pray for Rosemary’s Baby.” ~Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

IMDB Summary: A young couple move into a new apartment, only to be surrounded by peculiar neighbors and occurrences. When the wife becomes mysteriously pregnant, paranoia over the safety of her unborn child begins controlling her life.

Rotten Tomatoes rating: 99% (The highest on the whole list.)

Why I love it: Mia Farrow. The hair, the outfits, the 1968-ness of it all. And I love her naiveté. Honestly I probably would have acted the exact same way if the weird neighbors were in cahoots with my husband to have the devil impregnate me.

I’m fascinated by Roman Polanski. He survived the Holocaust (but his mother did not), became a fantastic film director, married Sharon Tate who was killed along with her unborn baby by hippies, then got in trouble for having sex with an underage girl and now he can’t come back to the states because he’ll get arrested. He made a movie with his now-wife, the very beautiful Emmanuelle Seignor called Bitter Moon. I love it.

First of all, nice way to open a movie. What a creepy lullaby. I’m pretty sure it’s that “could I be pretty… could I be… something?” song. Second, if I ever get rich, I’m moving into the Dakota. Coolest building ever.

The Woodhouses are the cutest young couple ever. Well, she’s cute. Mia Farrow was only 21. They move into the Dakota, where she makes friends with an ex-troublemking girl with smelly herbs hanging around her neck who’s staying with the Castevets next door. The chick ends up throwing herself out the window. And there’s the 200-year-old Castevets on the scene, she in her fabulous Pucci print dress and he in his pink searsucker suit and bow tie.

Guy is an actor. He was in Luther and No One Loves an Albatross. (So we hear, like, three times in the first 20 minutes.) They all become friendly. Rosemary, did you have to tell nosy Mrs. Castevet you want to have a baby soon?! They have dinner and talk shit about the Pope. Two days later, Guy gets a phone call out of the blue about a job. Suddenly he’s in the mood for love and babies. After a strange, dreamy sequence of devil sex, Rosemary wakes up with scratches. Her husband apologizes for getting rough with her when she was passed out. “It was kind of fun in a necrophile way.” What a nice conception story.

The Castevets are all about it. They make her see their doctor friend and give her shakes to drink. Rosemary cuts her hair. She doesn’t feel well, she looks like shit and she’s eating raw liver. She breaks down from pain at a party. Or maybe it’s hormones. Or maybe a devil baby is clawing at her from the inside. Mrs. Castevet keeps coming over with shakes for her to drink. The scrabble tiles betray Roman Castevet. Rosemary is going crazy and no one will listen. By the time she has the baby, she’s become completely undone. They tell her it died. Guy seems rather upbeat.

While she’s busy pumping the milk that she thinks is getting thrown away, she hears a baby crying. She sneaks next door to find the lot of them sitting around a black bassinet. When she takes a look at the baby, she’s a little shocked. Like she was rammed up the ass with a pitchfork. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO IT’S EYES?!”  (I never use all caps, but it seems right here.) They say he has his father’s eyes.

I love this chick and her reviews on horrordigest.com:

So what I love about this movie is that there is no happy ending. Sorry to spoil it but in case you haven’t figured it out, Rosemary eventually gives birth to the devil’s son. That ending scene when she looks into the bassinet and screams about his eyes is pretty sad, and we never really get to see what the little devil (haha) looks like. Then all the devil worshippers tell her she must be his mother and I think it’s pretty safe to say she has to give in. It’s that special bond and attachment thing I guess. Poor Rosemary.

So perfect.

Next: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre