Rosemary's Baby

Name: Rosemary's Baby

Directed By: Roman Polanski

Subgenre: Thriller

Series: Spooktober 2019 entry #21; review #52

Review: Before we begin, let this sentence serve as your generalized content warning. Now that you've been ominously warned, let's cut right to the meat of it. Rosemary's Baby is a classic by famed director Roman Polanski, but should it be? In case you haven't seen it, it's about Rosemary having a baby. But, like, other spooky shenanigans happen. And yeah, this happens to be the third part of my unintentional Pregnancy Horrors Trilogy of reviews (the others being Prevenge and Hell Baby. With a run-time of 136 minutes, it's definitely on the slow burn side of horror and possesses little in the way of overt scares. Even the climax is, frankly, fairly anticlimactic with its melodramatic overstating of the obvious. Rosemary's Baby's claim to fame is its methodical breakdown of Rosemary's life as nefarious forces seem to slither out from every corner. Paranoia and fear for her unborn child begin to take hold driving her further and further into madness, or is that what those around her want her to think? Polanski weaves in themes of women's liberation into the plot, which is rather ironic given the main character is subjected to being drugged and raped and, eventually, willfully gives in to subjugation of her abuser--her husband even makes light of the rape by joking about him being "a necrophile now" (because she was drugged and passed out, you see). Oh, it's also ironic given that Roman Polanski drugged and anally raped a 13 year old girl in 1977 and fled to France where he's currently dodging extradition. While Rosemary's Baby has some merit as a horror classic (the film is preserved in the National Film Registry in the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"), it does not make up for the fact that Roman Polanski drugged and anally raped a 13 year old before fleeing the country. He has continued directing films since he was arrested and continues to be nominated for various awards and nominations. The real horror of Rosemary's Baby was the trauma and culture of abuse we made along the way.

Overall Score: 0 out of 5 Chads: disqualified by way of child rape. Now, you're probably thinking that I should separate the art from the artist. You might be right, but it's also my review and no one will see it anyway. Did Rosemary's Baby scare you? What about the surrounding controversy? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Addendum: In light of the #MeToo movement, I’m aware that this is a blazingly hot take to have. Speaking of--and while it’s not related to Rosemary’s Baby at all--apparently Polanski, who remains a fugitive of the law, blames Harvey Weinstein for besmirching his reputation which is just a chef’s kiss level of irony, at least to me.

IMDB: Here

How to Watch: Boar is available on these platforms.

Official Trailer