#like it really really is

[jacquelinemerritt]

Horror Media Review: Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Originally posted September 2nd, 2016

The corruption of domestic American life.

This review is part of a biweekly series of pieces on classic horror films. See them all here!

Rosemary’s Baby, Roman Polanski1 and Mia Farrow’s breakout film is a masterpiece of tense and subtle storytelling. Today, watching the film feels like going back to the source of inspiration for the “Satanic Panic,” and indeed, in 1968, when the film was released, four other films about Satanists and black magic were released, arguably helping to plant the cultural seed for the very real moral panic over Satanic Ritual Abuse in the 1980s.

Due to its status as a cultural landmark, the basics of the plot are well-known: Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and her husband Guy (John Cassavetes) move into a new apartment and become friends with an old couple that lived next door, Roman and Minnie Castavet (Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon, respectively), who conspire with Guy to impregnate Rosemary with the son of Satan himself, leading to a painful pregnancy and the birth of a demonic child.

The reveal that Roman and Minnie are Satanists has not lost its potency, despite the ubiquity of this story, because it reveals a truth that speaks both to the culture of the time and the culture of today. The Castavets are not the only members of this Satanic cult; every tenant in the apartment besides Rosemary has joined in the worship of Satan, and the depravity of these members of the “Greatest Generation” is meant to reveal the depravity that is necessary for having a successful domestic life in America.

This full depravity is not arrived at all at once; the film is very deliberate in showing that this level of corruption is arrived at by making a series of individual moral compromises, and we see this in Guy’s character arc. A struggling actor, Guy is immediately turned onto the Castavet’s cult when Roman promises off-screen to ensure that Guy gets a significant part in a play, “the kind of role that people notice,” as Guy puts it.

When he gets the role, Guy starts to exert pressure on his wife in small ways, leading her to eat a drugged dessert that will ensure Rosemary is asleep while Satan impregnates her,2 discouraging her from throwing a party with only friends her age, and throwing away the last gift Rosemary received from a mutual friend, all because it led her to (rightfully) believe that the Castavets were practicing witchcraft.

Guy’s pressure on her is only the backdrop to Rosemary’s struggles, however; she is the true center of this story. The compromises Rosemary seems to make are much more obvious, but despite being pressured to limit her agency and be compliant to Guy and the Castavets’ desires, Rosemary takes every opportunity she can to act on her own beliefs, engaging in little acts of rebellion and expertly hiding those acts from those around her.

This is the part of the review where the obligatory rave over Mia Farrow’s performance has to occur, but it’s honestly impossible not to rave at just how brilliant she is in the role. She puts on an air of innocence that serves to hide an incredible strength, all of which is devoted to trying to be the best mother she can for her child. She projects the sense of someone who desires the fulfillment that can come with domestic life and motherhood as well as the knowledge and insight of someone who knows that the trappings of domesticity are ultimately very dangerous. Her knowledge of that danger is what eventually leads her to flee home and bring a knife into the Castavet’s apartment, angrily trying to confront the people she believes have stolen her child away for use in a magic ritual.

The staging of this final scene is particularly important to the message of the film. Rosemary sneaks into the Castavet’s home through closet that connects her apartment with theirs, and she finds all of her neighbors sitting and chatting together around a black cradle adorned with an upturned cross. She wields a kitchen knife against them, but ultimately none of them are scared of her but one woman, who reacts with a scream that finally draws the group’s attention to her.

At this point, Rosemary is damaged, and this is her attempt to lash out at the people surrounding her for the harm they have caused, but even now she cannot break their façade of peaceful domesticity. Her presence does lead Roman Castavet to preach about the son of Satan and lead the crowd in a brief chant hailing their dark lord, but they immediately return to the peaceful conversations they were having as if “Hail Satan” was an absolutely normal cry for people to make at a party.

Then the baby starts to cry. No one can calm him down, because no one in this group has the proper temperament to be a mother.

Except Rosemary.

So she makes her way over to the cradle, trying to talk the woman rocking the demonic child into rocking him more gently, as that might calm him down. The woman doesn’t listen to Rosemary, but Roman does, and he shoos the woman away, beckoning Rosemary to come and take care of “her son.”

And the child, this son of Satan with yellow demonic eyes who caused her immeasurable pain, the child is still her son.

So she rocks him. And he calms.

Because what kind of mother would sit there and do nothing while her son cries for attention?

Rating: 4.5/5

1Discussing the work of Roman Polanski without mentioning that he confessed to the statutory rape of a thirteen-year-old girl is immoral and reprehensible. That does not mean that Polanski’s history of rape must be the interpretive lens through which the film is viewed, and it certainly doesn’t degrade the value of Rosemary’s Baby as a piece of art. There is, of course, nothing wrong with choosing to avoid supporting the work of sexual predators on principle, and it would be remiss to criticize anyone who avoids seeing any of Polanski’s films on those grounds.

2There is a significant cultural difference that must be noted here, however. While it is made very clear that Satan rapes Rosemary in her sleep, both through the imagery used and Rosemary’s description of her “dream,” when Rosemary wakes up and finds scratches on her side, Guy explains them away by saying that he “didn’t want to miss baby night,” implying that he slept with her while she was unconscious. Rosemary is somewhat disturbed by this revelation, but she adjusts to it fairly quickly, allowing the rest of the film to somehow gloss over the fact that her husband admits to raping her as a defense for why her actual rapist left scratches on her. It is a very uncomfortable moment, but it unfortunately can be explained away by the sexual politics of the time, as marital rape was completely legal in the state of New York (where the film is set) until 1984.

Rosemary’s Baby can be streamed via Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus.

Critical Eye Criticism is the work of Jacqueline Merritt, a trans woman, filmmaker, and critic. You can support her continued film criticism addiction on Patreon.

[malwarechips]

yknow i never noticed the sheer rareness of images having ids or alt text on this website until i started adding alt text to my art (and trying to remember to add it to any images i post in general, especially text screenshots) and that makes me kinda sad

[teaboot]

When I was a kid one of my moms would call her period "moon time" or "her monthlies" or shit like that and my other mom straight up stealthed it, but when I'm a dad I think I'm gonna go straight down the middle and call it Werewolf Week. Like sorry kids, dad can't roughouse right now, it's Werewolf Week

[cemeterything]

stuck between "psychological horror statement" and "objectively the funniest thing you could say to your real flesh and blood dad" in the father's day card aisle

[ski-ip]

something something dark magic

[mitzysmitzy]

they changed the fullbody images on the official website to the changeling ones im crying. look at them.

[trans-rights-coastalmangoes]

you know he would have been one of Those kids

inspired by this pic:

[carouselcometh]

Devastating! Art museum gift shop doesn’t sell prints of specific and unpopular painting that struck a cord with you!

[kavaleyre]

• The Hanged Man •

“Compared to what Falin went through? This is nothing.”

[beardedmrbean]

Edit adding credit to the creator since now I know who it is.

JK Brickworks YT jk brickworks tiktok

[littlelightfish]

Funny things I found out playing with language setting in Netflix while looking episode 15:

Chilchuck's scream sounds HAUNTED in brazilian portuguese. Give it a try if you can.

(You can hear it here)

In spanish dub, Senshi says: "tocó mis senos de hombre", which means "he touched my man boobs" in Spanish. And I think that's the best dub line one so far.

[starbuck]

i say i like tragedies and everyone’s all like ‘why do you like sad stories? are you depressed?’ and never ‘how was the catharsis? was the catharsis fun?’

[beebfreeb]

[eonars]

Last summer I was on a very expedited acid come up at a music festival and my entirely unaware mother thousands of miles away was at costco and texted me incredulous at how they already had halloween stuff out for sale in the summer but all I saw was a message preview of a giant 10 foot tall skeleton with glowing eyes and "can u believe it??"

[sunbloomdew]

do you ever see a person and you are overcome with incredible fondness? and you just think "oh." but not in a romantic or sexual way you are just filled with warmth and it makes you happy, it just does. and you think "i'm so happy you exist. i'm happy you are somewhere out there in the world, doing your thing". it's love but also not entirely

like people are lovely and i feel it in my entire chest like a burning candle that smells like roses and a sunny day

[merrigel]

Everybody do the wenis!

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