Rosemary's Baby (1968) - review

Based on the book by Ira Levin, Rosemary's baby is a chilling early religious horror film that blends comfort and natural behavior with horror and cosmic forces. A young couple tries eagerly for a baby for a while and when Rosemary meets their eccentric new neighbors, suddenly she finds herself pregnant but under mysterious and odd circumstances. Strange things begin to happen and she finds herself carrying something inhuman and part of a sinister plan to bring about a demon on earth.

This character driven story is chilling and compelling in so many ways that religious horror isn't today. Mia Farrow plays the meek and terrified Rosemary and does so in an outstanding way! Shes scared both of being a mother and of what forces seem to be playing with her as a piece of their plan for evil. The neighbors are crazy and weird and they are portrayed in such a convincing way that the plot twist at the end makes a complete left turn for "what the hell?!" territory. Rosemary's husband Guy Wood house is such an annoying a bossy a-hole and John Cassavetes does an amazing job of portraying that kind of character.

This film has a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and that should tell you something on that rating alone but to add to that, it has a 8/10 on IMDb and a 96% on Metaritic. This film is considered a horror classic for a reason!

The cinematography makes this film feel so claustrophobic and stressful to watch and it's all pretty much done on a handheld camera or a tighter lens. This closeness and the only settings pretty much being the Woodhouse's apartment, neighbor's apartment, and a doctor's office. You get to get familiar in an overwhelmingly stressful sense of those three places and you start to empathize with Rosemary as she begins to feel constrained and trapped in her own life and become frantic as she nears the birth of the baby or rather the "baby".

I also just love the poster for this film! It's very simple and gets straight to the point. The green hue of the background is really pretty and earthy and natural but if you look at it in just the right context, it's evil and weird feeling just like the film is. Just having the carriage, or trolley as some of you call it, is ominous and right from just the picture on the poster, we know the baby is the thing in this film to pay attention to and the baby is the focal point of the film but on the poster we don't see much detail of the baby or even the carriage itself which reflects pretty much what we get in the movie too. Little to no details but just enough so we begin to assume and speculate as Rosemary herself does.

Scroll down for the spoilers section like usual!

Paramount Pictures Rosemary's Baby Poster (1968)

The plot twist at the end was somewhat obvious to me throughout the film but the people involved in the plan besides the neighbors, shocked me. The biggest surprise as the involvement of Guy, Rosemary's husband as well as the Doctor from the office we saw just before the twist. I also really liked how they didn't show the baby during their little celebration at the end of the film as that added to the mystery of just what the hell is this thing.

The music added to the tension as well and I also loved how much they told us and didn't show us. That adds to the immersion and puts us, the audience, into Rosemary's perspective since she's just told all of this and didn't see or process any of it herself. We are watching Rosemary from a detached point of view but we are very much experiencing everything with her and realizing stuff going on with Rosemary.

The costumes are subtle and accurate for the time period and personalities of the characters which just adds to the immersive experience the viewers go through and I love the greens that Rosemary wears throughout a lot of the film. It's very earthy and natural feeling while the baby inside her is unnatural and evil by nature. It's a very interesting contrast and adds just another layer of depth into the story and the characters.

There's a reason this film ranked in my top ten blog post a while back and it truly is a slow burn horror. It's slower and you do feel that longer run time now and then which I think holds a lot of more modern audiences back and I truly think this film was a pioneer for modern religious horror and seems to be an inspiration to films like Immaculate (2024) and The First Omen (2024). It's a very character driven story and is much more grounded for the most part (other than the demon baby story line) but there's not much in terms of visual effects we would expect from horror films these days but I like how they portrayed Rosemary as becoming more sickly as the baby develops in her womb and it created a sense of fear for mothers because sometimes effects expecting mothers similar with feeling sick a lot more than just morning sickness, hair falling out, etc. These are very real side effects of pregnancy and this film likes to play on that very real fear that women may have regarding pregnancy and the outcomes of it.

I give Rosemary's Baby (1968) a 7/10