Review of Rosemary's Baby (1968) by Paul V — 27 Jul 2010

To be honest, I found this movie to be a pretty big letdown. Cited by many as a seminal horror picture, I thought that it was not particularly suspenseful, scary or disturbing, and more than anything, it was utterly predictable. Frankly, thatâ??s just about the worst thing that a horror film can be.

Iâ??ve considered that this could be due to the fact that the movie was made forty-two years ago, and the plot has been recycled many times over, but Iâ??ve seen a handful of horror films by Alfred Hitchcock that predate Polanskiâ??s film by decades, and which remain, in my opinion, far superior exercises in building tension; after all, Hitchcock is the Master of Suspense. Look at Psycho: even today, that movie, though not as visually shocking as films made today, is terrifying and unpredictable to the viewer seeing it for the first time. Who could expect Norman Bates, the lonely, fumbling innkeeper, to be a psychopathic killer who spends half his time impersonating (and killing in the name of) his mother?

Rosemaryâ??s Baby, meanwhile, had very few things that I did not see coming. Itâ??s rather obvious from the beginning that the Castavets are bad news, and moreover, each move they make (the herbal drinks, stealing Hutchâ??s glove, etc.) is easily foreseen.

Beyond that, I did not sympathize with the character of Rosemary, whom I thought to be rather foolish and whiny. Thatâ??s another issue that many horror films (mediocre ones, that is) share: characters whom you donâ??t care about, and thusly donâ??t mind seeing maimed, tortured or killed.

Even the more intriguing parts of Rosemaryâ??s Baby, such as the dream/rape scene, I felt were poorly edited (in the case of the aforementioned scene, far too slowly cut to register any real impact) and ineffective in terms of any kind of fear-factor.

All in all, I believe that seen at the right age now, or seen in the right time period (being the decade or so around its release), Rosemaryâ??s Baby may be a fine, chilling motion picture. Today, however, intriguing though the story may be, that isnâ??t enough to save it. I found it to be an entirely unaffecting affair; not scary, not disturbing, and dated in almost every way.