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Editorial Reviews
Terrifying and darkly comic, Rosemary’s Baby marked the Hollywood debut of Roman Polanski (Repulsion). This wildly entertaining nightmare, faithfully adapted from Ira Levin’s best seller, stars a revelatory Mia Farrow (Hannah and Her Sisters) as a young mother-to-be who grows increasingly suspicious that her overfriendly elderly neighbors, played by Sidney Blackmer (High Society) and an Oscar-winning Ruth Gordon (Harold and Maude), and self-involved husband (actor and filmmaker John Cassavetes) are hatching a satanic plot against her and her baby. In the decades of occult cinema Polanski’s ungodly masterpiece has spawned, it’s never been outdone for sheer psychological terror.
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24 of 26 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
Rosemary's Baby is my favorite horror film of all time. Its got it all: a genius director, marvelous actors, a haunting tale, spooky neighbors, dastardly witches, and, of course, Satan. The film revolves around a young woman named Rosemary Woodhouse. Rosemary and her husband are expecting a child. But Rosemary doesn't look so good. Rosemary is starting to believe that she has been impregnated by evil itself, and everyone she knows might be in on it. As a thriller it works on a level Hitchcock only hinted at. Its a film that surpasses masterpiece and classic, and rests snug atop the terrain of legend.
It was once a venial sin to watch this film, condemned by the Catholic Church and the Legion Of Decency, now you can own it in glorious High-Definition, with a genial satisfaction only Criterion could bestow.
This film only gets creepier and creepier with time. There are several different ways to watch this film. And this film, in turn, tries to tell us many several different things. As film scholar David J. Skal points out in his fantastic book 'The Monster Show':
"Whether Levin's strategy was conscious or not, the plot of Rosemary's Baby was a brilliant metaphorical distillation of the widespread ambivalence and anxiety over sex and reproduction, concerns overshadowed by the garish glare of the swinging sixties. On a simplistic level, both Rosemary and the reader share lingering doubts about the chemical-occult tinkering of their reproductive systems. Rosemary drinks the stinking tannis-root cocktail that her neighbor provides while the reader(likely) swallows the magic candy of birth-control pills. Neither has a deep understanding of the effects of either substance on their bodies and their lives; they rely trustingly on patriarchal authority. Rosemary Woodhouse is led repeatedly to believe she is making her own carefully considered reproductive choices, but the decisions are all being made for her. No matter what assurances are offered, no matter what charms and preparations she uses or ingests, she is not really safe. One of the many indelible images in the film version of Rosemary's Baby is the pregnant but wasted-looking Mia Farrow dashing out against the light into midtown traffic, an apt metaphor for child-bearing under socio-technological seige."
Roman Polanski is my favorite living Director. He is without a doubt the most cathartic of any, living or dead, and damn near the most personal. To think that just one year after making Rosemary's Baby, tragedy would strike his home, wife, and child, is far too horrifying a concept to accept as reality. Polanski fought back with films like Macbeth and Chinatown, both are nothing short of cinematic exorcisms; Polanski fighting off his demons. His films are usually deeply personal, and Rosemary's Baby is no exception.
Another one of my personal heroes had a hand in the creation of Rosemary's Baby.
John Cassavetes gives an outrageously good performance as Rosemary's husband, Guy Woodhouse. The performance Cassavetes lays down gets better and better, and more and more complex the more you watch the film. Mia Farrow is the obvious force to be reckoned with here, but Cassavetes' performance is quickly overshadowing her's for me. Its a performance of subtlety and nuance. Each look, motion, action, pause, and word takes on different meanings after repeated viewings. Sadly, Cassavetes and Polanski hated each other. Polanski has gone on record discrediting Cassavetes' abilities as not only an actor, but as a filmmaker. And Cassavetes can be quoted as saying, "You can't dispute the fact he's an artist, but yet you have to say Rosemary's Baby is not art". The two nearly came to blows, and by the end of production had grown loathsome of each other. But you could've fooled me. It seems as if everyone involved with this film were in tune with each other, in perfect sync.
What Mia Farrow does in this film is indescribable. You'll be hard-pressed to find a more empathetic portrayal of a damsel in distress. I felt all of her fears, and shared more than just basic emotions. Mia Farrow had the ability to communicate feelings effortlessly on film, a very rare and unique gift that Polanski skillfully manipulates and fine-tunes. Not only a great performance but an iconic one. "What have you done to its eyes" will stay with me forever.
It is a truly mystifying picture. Its impossible to not feel Rosemary's paranoia, or even question her sanity, or your logic. Atmospheric and isolated at the same time, this film will play with your sensibilities. If you have not seen it, I highly recommend this one. This is a film that should not be missed by anyone. It is just that good.
And this Blu-Ray Edition is stellar. The picture is very good, and what we've come to expect from Criterion: Quality Above All Else. The colors are very impressive. When compared to the previous DVD release, the picture is a Godsend. The sound is even better. Krzyzstof Komeda's score has never sounded better. Its as if this was my very first time actually hearing it. It was a wonderful experience.
The supplements, in my honest opinion, could have included a little bit more red meat. The disc includes an Interview with Author Ira Levin from 1997, a feature length documentary about the composer of the picture, and the best stuff collected by Criterion: the new interviews with Roman Polanski, Robert Evans, and Mia Farrow herself, I can see myself watching these many times over. But, not to gripe with a next to perfect release of my favorite film, it could have easily included a commentary track. Or the Vintage Behind The Scenes Feature available on the previous DVD release. I guess Criterion just didn't feel like going all out with this one, which is sad for me, I just can't get enough of this one.
Regardless of how I feel about the bonus features, the movie LOOKS and SOUNDS great. Thank you Criterion a million times over! If you're a fan of the film, DO NOT HESITATE. Its worth the upgrade, its worth the cost, and you'll love the product!
It was once a venial sin to watch this film, condemned by the Catholic Church and the Legion Of Decency, now you can own it in glorious High-Definition, with a genial satisfaction only Criterion could bestow.
This film only gets creepier and creepier with time. There are several different ways to watch this film. And this film, in turn, tries to tell us many several different things. As film scholar David J. Skal points out in his fantastic book 'The Monster Show':
"Whether Levin's strategy was conscious or not, the plot of Rosemary's Baby was a brilliant metaphorical distillation of the widespread ambivalence and anxiety over sex and reproduction, concerns overshadowed by the garish glare of the swinging sixties. On a simplistic level, both Rosemary and the reader share lingering doubts about the chemical-occult tinkering of their reproductive systems. Rosemary drinks the stinking tannis-root cocktail that her neighbor provides while the reader(likely) swallows the magic candy of birth-control pills. Neither has a deep understanding of the effects of either substance on their bodies and their lives; they rely trustingly on patriarchal authority. Rosemary Woodhouse is led repeatedly to believe she is making her own carefully considered reproductive choices, but the decisions are all being made for her. No matter what assurances are offered, no matter what charms and preparations she uses or ingests, she is not really safe. One of the many indelible images in the film version of Rosemary's Baby is the pregnant but wasted-looking Mia Farrow dashing out against the light into midtown traffic, an apt metaphor for child-bearing under socio-technological seige."
Roman Polanski is my favorite living Director. He is without a doubt the most cathartic of any, living or dead, and damn near the most personal. To think that just one year after making Rosemary's Baby, tragedy would strike his home, wife, and child, is far too horrifying a concept to accept as reality. Polanski fought back with films like Macbeth and Chinatown, both are nothing short of cinematic exorcisms; Polanski fighting off his demons. His films are usually deeply personal, and Rosemary's Baby is no exception.
Another one of my personal heroes had a hand in the creation of Rosemary's Baby.
John Cassavetes gives an outrageously good performance as Rosemary's husband, Guy Woodhouse. The performance Cassavetes lays down gets better and better, and more and more complex the more you watch the film. Mia Farrow is the obvious force to be reckoned with here, but Cassavetes' performance is quickly overshadowing her's for me. Its a performance of subtlety and nuance. Each look, motion, action, pause, and word takes on different meanings after repeated viewings. Sadly, Cassavetes and Polanski hated each other. Polanski has gone on record discrediting Cassavetes' abilities as not only an actor, but as a filmmaker. And Cassavetes can be quoted as saying, "You can't dispute the fact he's an artist, but yet you have to say Rosemary's Baby is not art". The two nearly came to blows, and by the end of production had grown loathsome of each other. But you could've fooled me. It seems as if everyone involved with this film were in tune with each other, in perfect sync.
What Mia Farrow does in this film is indescribable. You'll be hard-pressed to find a more empathetic portrayal of a damsel in distress. I felt all of her fears, and shared more than just basic emotions. Mia Farrow had the ability to communicate feelings effortlessly on film, a very rare and unique gift that Polanski skillfully manipulates and fine-tunes. Not only a great performance but an iconic one. "What have you done to its eyes" will stay with me forever.
It is a truly mystifying picture. Its impossible to not feel Rosemary's paranoia, or even question her sanity, or your logic. Atmospheric and isolated at the same time, this film will play with your sensibilities. If you have not seen it, I highly recommend this one. This is a film that should not be missed by anyone. It is just that good.
And this Blu-Ray Edition is stellar. The picture is very good, and what we've come to expect from Criterion: Quality Above All Else. The colors are very impressive. When compared to the previous DVD release, the picture is a Godsend. The sound is even better. Krzyzstof Komeda's score has never sounded better. Its as if this was my very first time actually hearing it. It was a wonderful experience.
The supplements, in my honest opinion, could have included a little bit more red meat. The disc includes an Interview with Author Ira Levin from 1997, a feature length documentary about the composer of the picture, and the best stuff collected by Criterion: the new interviews with Roman Polanski, Robert Evans, and Mia Farrow herself, I can see myself watching these many times over. But, not to gripe with a next to perfect release of my favorite film, it could have easily included a commentary track. Or the Vintage Behind The Scenes Feature available on the previous DVD release. I guess Criterion just didn't feel like going all out with this one, which is sad for me, I just can't get enough of this one.
Regardless of how I feel about the bonus features, the movie LOOKS and SOUNDS great. Thank you Criterion a million times over! If you're a fan of the film, DO NOT HESITATE. Its worth the upgrade, its worth the cost, and you'll love the product!
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
Traditionally, this has been my favorite movie and probably holds that position for the longest amount of time. Over the years, other films have come and gone and even some of Polanski's other films have stolen the top spot. I admire his entire body of work, but after viewing the BD version of this film there is no doubt that once again Rosemary's Baby is definitely my favorite Polanski film.
The BD quality of this disc manages to still retain the gritty look of the original film print while delivering a significant improvement from previous DVD transfers. The problem with many BDs these days is that some of the essence is lost. It all looks digital now. Everything is too sharp, too crisp, too "perfect" but with this transfer, you can still see film grain, slight imperfections in sharpness that give a resonating feeling of uneasiness and perhaps a vintage sort of rustic quality. Another great improvement is the richness and depths of the colors and contrast of the film. Some of the "blooming" effects of overexposure are minimized. More details can be picked up. The nuances of the wallpaper, the trinkets in the Castavet's house, the chunks of tanis root. This film is brilliant!
The supplemental documentary offers interviews with Farrow, Polanski, and Evans. This is different from the Paramount DVD, some of the same content is included, some is left out, but there is plenty more that has been added. I have read many books on Polanski, interviews, and different essays on the film and still have been given new insight into the film and what went into it. A very worthwhile supplement, indeed. The other is a bit about long time collaborator who did the score, and yet another with the author of the book Ira Levin.
If you have never seen this film, it is what I would consider a genuine horror movie. It easily trumps anything that has come out in the past decade (or two) and is absolutely the most terrifying film I have seen. This is psychological horror that will leave you most uncomfortable even long after leaving the theater. What you won't find is BOO! (laugh) repeat. The Exorcist and The Omen are other good examples of this "genuine horror" I speak of, but Rosemary's Baby is still absolutely the best of the three.
If you HAVE seen this film before and enjoy it, the upgrade is well worth it.
The BD quality of this disc manages to still retain the gritty look of the original film print while delivering a significant improvement from previous DVD transfers. The problem with many BDs these days is that some of the essence is lost. It all looks digital now. Everything is too sharp, too crisp, too "perfect" but with this transfer, you can still see film grain, slight imperfections in sharpness that give a resonating feeling of uneasiness and perhaps a vintage sort of rustic quality. Another great improvement is the richness and depths of the colors and contrast of the film. Some of the "blooming" effects of overexposure are minimized. More details can be picked up. The nuances of the wallpaper, the trinkets in the Castavet's house, the chunks of tanis root. This film is brilliant!
The supplemental documentary offers interviews with Farrow, Polanski, and Evans. This is different from the Paramount DVD, some of the same content is included, some is left out, but there is plenty more that has been added. I have read many books on Polanski, interviews, and different essays on the film and still have been given new insight into the film and what went into it. A very worthwhile supplement, indeed. The other is a bit about long time collaborator who did the score, and yet another with the author of the book Ira Levin.
If you have never seen this film, it is what I would consider a genuine horror movie. It easily trumps anything that has come out in the past decade (or two) and is absolutely the most terrifying film I have seen. This is psychological horror that will leave you most uncomfortable even long after leaving the theater. What you won't find is BOO! (laugh) repeat. The Exorcist and The Omen are other good examples of this "genuine horror" I speak of, but Rosemary's Baby is still absolutely the best of the three.
If you HAVE seen this film before and enjoy it, the upgrade is well worth it.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
No great special effects, no buckets of blood, hell not even jump out of your seat scares, really. So after reading that sentence you might say, "What's the point of watching a horror movie if all that is true?". Oh, dear friend, a horror movie can have so much more then just blood and cheap scares.
Rosemary's Baby is the type of horror that creepys up on you bit by bit, you start to piece everything together, you start to feel, yes really feel for this Rosemary girl, in a horror story no less. You begin ever so slowly to feel very uncomfortable about those people she meets, and you're sure there has to be something wrong with that baby, and you know what it is and you're almost sure how it will end, but you keep rooting for this Rosemary girl.
Rosemary is a new bride and she and her husband are making that first big step that comes with marriage, they buy a house, an apartment actually. In what looks like Dracula's hotel. There she does all the things that a newly wed bride does, at least in the 60's: paint, decorate, contact-paper the kitchen shelves, etc. She doesn't work outside the home, being a wife is her job, and she does it well. Her husband is an actor, with bit parts here and there but nothing steady. She even befriends another woman in her age group that lives there, and she has her nosey neighbors(they actually ask you what you pay for stuff!!). Everything seems fine, and normal, right? Right? So what, you some times hear chanting next door, or that your new friend threw herself from a window, you're out in the real world now and things happen.
I find that this movie is actually about Rosemary's leap into modern day feminism or at least trying to make that leap. She begins the movie in very June Cleaver-mode as I've stated, she even finds herself distanced from her friends, which happens to a lot of women sometimes when they are in a very unhealthy relationship. She even seems to accept all this, up to a point. Imagine that her biggest rebellion is to have a party at her home with, HER friends. By this time so many things have happened that you just want her to get the hell out of Dodge, which she eventually does, but with very 60's antifeminist ramifications, you'll understand when you see it.
And in the end what wins? Rosemary's feminism or society's expectation on what she must do?
And the biggest punch line of all is towards the end, when they say the baby has his "father's" eyes.
Creepy.
Rosemary's Baby is the type of horror that creepys up on you bit by bit, you start to piece everything together, you start to feel, yes really feel for this Rosemary girl, in a horror story no less. You begin ever so slowly to feel very uncomfortable about those people she meets, and you're sure there has to be something wrong with that baby, and you know what it is and you're almost sure how it will end, but you keep rooting for this Rosemary girl.
Rosemary is a new bride and she and her husband are making that first big step that comes with marriage, they buy a house, an apartment actually. In what looks like Dracula's hotel. There she does all the things that a newly wed bride does, at least in the 60's: paint, decorate, contact-paper the kitchen shelves, etc. She doesn't work outside the home, being a wife is her job, and she does it well. Her husband is an actor, with bit parts here and there but nothing steady. She even befriends another woman in her age group that lives there, and she has her nosey neighbors(they actually ask you what you pay for stuff!!). Everything seems fine, and normal, right? Right? So what, you some times hear chanting next door, or that your new friend threw herself from a window, you're out in the real world now and things happen.
I find that this movie is actually about Rosemary's leap into modern day feminism or at least trying to make that leap. She begins the movie in very June Cleaver-mode as I've stated, she even finds herself distanced from her friends, which happens to a lot of women sometimes when they are in a very unhealthy relationship. She even seems to accept all this, up to a point. Imagine that her biggest rebellion is to have a party at her home with, HER friends. By this time so many things have happened that you just want her to get the hell out of Dodge, which she eventually does, but with very 60's antifeminist ramifications, you'll understand when you see it.
And in the end what wins? Rosemary's feminism or society's expectation on what she must do?
And the biggest punch line of all is towards the end, when they say the baby has his "father's" eyes.
Creepy.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A horror classic done better from Criterion!
Newlywed couple Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and Guy Woodhouse (John Cassavetes) have just moved into a New York City complex apartment building. Read more
Published 4 days ago by John Lindsey
5.0 out of 5 stars
rosemary,s baby
I,think that this is a great movie.I saw this movie years ago and I still thank it is a wonderfull movie to see. Read more
Published 5 days ago by james brown
5.0 out of 5 stars
Top ten favorite movies, one of my favorite horror flicks
When it comes to horror I always prefer the psychological. I haven't delved into the special features, the next time I feel like giving it another watch I'll probably go through... Read more
Published 27 days ago by DaveAvenger
5.0 out of 5 stars
A beautiful classic
Criterion once again surpasses expectation in releasing this classic horror. A must-have for the film's fans, but for others, dive in to rich extras to get insight on the film. Read more
Published 29 days ago by Nauval Yazid
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the scariest movies ever made, and it gets scarier with every...
Criterion's release of this horror classic is perfect. Instead of commissioning new artwork, they have opted to use the original poster art. Read more
Published 29 days ago by J. Wingenfeld
5.0 out of 5 stars
Shazam! A rare event.
Very very occasionally there is an alignment of talents and arts that make a brilliant product - this is one of those moments. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Ian Muldoon
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best
It is very hard not to like this film!
Ira Levin wrote an almost perfect story of evil in modern times. Read more
Ira Levin wrote an almost perfect story of evil in modern times. Read more
Published 2 months ago by James W. Durney
5.0 out of 5 stars
A+ blu-ray release
I had the DVD version of this film, and although that version was acceptable for a viewing experience, this Criterian edition blows the DVD out of the water. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Jeffrey P. Falcon
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best Polansky movies.
Polansky on Criterion finally a transfer worth of this great movie director what else should be said about this great movie.
Published 2 months ago by Richard Collard
4.0 out of 5 stars
Straight from the book (almost)
Here's a review of the movie relative to the book - I read the book before seeing this movie for the first time. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Davewise
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