Housewife Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) and her self-absorbed husband Guy (John Cassavetes) move to an apartment next to a strange old couple (Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer). Rosemary becomes pregnant, but this happy event is also the beginning of her paranoia and fear that witches want her baby.
Along with The Omen and The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby created the Christian Mythos sub-genre of horror. Sure, there were films with Satan and chanting witches before, but most ignored anything Biblical and were hardly serious films with teeth. Rosemary’s Baby is the lightest of the three, with some people (not I) regarding it as a comedy.
Besides being an important horror film that has influenced filmmakers for close to forty years, it has one of those ending that will stick with you, that is twisted and clever and that makes the film worth your time. Unfortunately, it is just the ending that does it as the rest of the film drags out the obvious. I’ve heard reviewers describe it as a thriller with a growing sense of tension and uncertainty. It is a thriller only if you’re not used to being thrilled, and as for uncertainty, if you don’t know everything that is going to happen twenty minutes before it does (except for the last two minutes), you’re just not trying. The first time chanting is heard through the walls, the story is set in place. It is not uncommon for someone to drone on about how you never know if everything is in her head or if there are real witches. Well, I knew, because if there weren’t real witches, then there was no story except a woman having a rough pregnancy (and if that’s all it was, a nice pamphlet or short health tape would be both more informative and more entertaining). John Cassavetes’s Guy doesn’t help as his character is written so poorly, so out of touch and unpleasant to Rosemary, that he might as well be twirling a mustache and sweeping his cape. He’s a bad man. Got it.
Several plot elements just don’t work, pulling me out of the story, including:
- Guy sells Rosemary out almost instantaneously. A few words from the neighbor and he’s cool with Satan having sex with his wife. Sure he’s an ass, but Hitler would have held out longer, and for more than one acting gig.
- Rosemary is paranoid of everyone including her neighbors and husband, except for her doctor, who the neighbors sent her to, who her girl friends said was a sadistic nut, and who was prescribing her drinks made by the neighbors and filled with the root that her dead friend warned her about. Isn’t he the first person she should have been afraid of?
- The witchcraft books at the bookstores. Do I need to explain?
- BIG SPOILER: With witches everywhere, they keep the stolen, crying baby just a wall away from Rosemary instead of keeping him…anywhere else.
I can’t help think what a brilliant short film Rosemary’s Baby would have been. Take the last scene, and about ten minutes of setup, and your done. It would have covered the material and sold the point. But instead, it is 136 minutes. That’s far too long for the limited content, particularly when the viewer knows what’s going to happen. There’s never any tension (even the ending isn’t tense), just lethargy.