Poll Position: Rosemary's Baby (1968)

The first week of the October poll is over and the winner was Rosemary's Baby by a landslide! Keep in mind the special rules of the poll this month means the losing titles come back from the dead and stay in the poll. If your choice didn't win, rally some votes for it this week!

I've heard about this movie plenty, and I knew the basic premise behind it, but I hadn't seen much from it. One thing I noticed though, was that I recognized the starring actress' name, Mia Farrow, but I wasn't sure from where at first. That and my further thoughts on the film after the jump!


The story of Rosemary's Baby starts off with a fresh young couple moving into a large apartment, even after they are warned of the strange history of the building. It seems many unusual deaths have occurred there over the years. Despite its creepy history, they move in, not letting silly stories dissuade them from such a lovely apartment. Shortly after moving in, they start hearing strange chanting coming from the other side of the wall, from the apartment next door. Not long after that, Rosemary (played by Mia Farrow) starts having unusual sex dreams and hallucinations of the devil. When she awakes, she has scratches on her, but her husband claims it was him and laughs it off. Soon Rosemary is pregnant, and as everyone starts acting strangely around her, and her pregnancy increasingly becomes unusually painful, she becomes more and more paranoid and fearful for her unborn baby.

Strange dreams, and many far worse than this, plague Rosemary before she gets pregnant

First of all, I'd like to say that this movie wasn't exactly what I expected it to be. I was expecting the pregnancy and birth to only be about half the film, and then creepy revelations and some kind of thriller or creature feature to take off from there. Instead the entire movie goes quite in-depth into the lives of Rosemary and her husband before the pregnancy and even more so during. This isn't to say I was disappointed by the it, instead it was more original to me, going more into the day-to-day of what Rosemary's experiences are in having this kind of... unique pregnancy.

Everyone loves Scrabble!

So Mia Farrow is the star of the film, playing the sweet, concerned, and then paranoid (justifiably) Rosemary. I knew I recognized the name, but I didn't recognize her face. Finally it hit me with a few key lines in the film, specifically when she says "Pain, begone! I will have no more of thee!" It was her voice! Mia Farrow was the voice of the Unicorn and the Lady Amalthea in one of my favorite childhood films of all time, The Last Unicorn, which I forced Puneet to watch back in June. It was cool to finally see her in a regular film, and put a voice to the face. It also helped that she did such a good job with the acting!

Not the usual accessory for a mother

I also liked the supernatural spin of the movie, using the concept of witches and covens, which generally aren't in too many movies. The devil worshiping cult was very mysterious and there was enough vagueness to the unusual goings-on that always kept it on the edge of coincidence and actual conspiracy. While the story tends to play out just how you might probably expect, the ending had a creepy WTF moment with Rosemary, and the implications therein. I certainly didn't see that coming!

I've tried to be fairly vague about the whole film, but I do want to clarify that if you're going to watch this movie, don't go in expecting a blood filled thriller. In fact I don't think there is a single drop of blood at all in the whole film. Although, it's possible that wasn't just paint. Anyways, this is solely a psychological horror, through and through. It's all about getting in your mind and going through what Rosemary is experiencing with her. It's a slow movie to get into, and sometimes kinda boring, so don't watch it if you're very tired! But I ultimately found it to be an interesting and well made film, even if I wish we had seen more of what happens afterwards. Then again, considering the time the film was made, maybe it's better they left so much up to the imagination, than if they had actually tried to show us something beyond what they did.