Rating: 
Summary: They just don't make 'em like they use to
Review: This movie is really freaked out. From the opening schrill notes of music to the stunning last scene, what a film! Roman Polanski does his career masterwork with Rosemary's Baby. Mia Farrow and John Cassavettes also turn in spectacular work. The plot is extremely creative and interesting. Farrow suspects that her husband, a struggling actor, has made a pact with the devil and joined a coven of witches led by their next door neighbors. There is very little physical violence in Rosemary's Baby most of it is emotional, which is even crueler. As the film progresses and it becomes clear that Rosemary's pregnancy is anything but normal, Rosemary's sanity becomes the focus of the film. Is she going mad or is there a very real plot against her? The answer will shock you. This is a very disturbing film that is built up beautifully in terms of plot, as the film clocks in at over 2 hours. The final scene in the film is so understated that it takes one a few moments to understand what has occurred and why. Overall, this is superbly acted and directed fare that has become a classic of the horror genre.
Rating:
Summary: The perfect ten for horror films
Review: This is without question the greatest horror film ever made and I was not even born until eleven years after this film was made as someone who seen scream and I know what you did last summer this is a cut above those eventhough I DO love those the chilling part of this film is you never know what your neighbours are like plus the people who are satantic worshippers are more like your grandparents and would hardly seem like the type of people who would be into that kind of stuff. Roman Polanski is a genius and shows why european filmmakers are so much better than american filmmakers so inclosing if you want to be terrified and have many sleepless nights this is the dvd for but you have been warned this not for the weak of heart.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Horror/Psychological Thriller Ever
Review: This one can be seen again and again as we journey with its star, the sweet, innocent Rosemary, through her conception and pregnancy. The thing that makes this so good is that it seems so plausible. Everyone in the movie could be the neighbor next door. Farrow should've won an Oscar for her nuanced performance. She is gut wrenchingly convincing in this. Her final scene where she makes her decision about what she will do gets you every time. Cassevetes is fabulous as her self-absorbed, heel of a husband and Ruth Gordon is just a delight. Roman & Dr. Saperstein are all wonderful as is Charles Grodin. My two favorite scenes are when Rosemary gets the book her now deceased friend Hutch leaves her a clue to figure out what's going on, and the realization hits as she unscrambles that clue. Finally, the last scene which is injected with a lot of black humor (the Asian guy shooting pictures and Ruth Gordon pressing in the knife mark in the floor) to its tragic yet touching final scene. You don't need blood, guts & brains to make people not sleep at night. Polanski is a genius.
Rating:
Summary: One of My Favorites
Review: In this age of lowered attention spans and Scream-style self-referential horror it does not surprise me to find many people disagreeing that this is indeed a "horror" film. People, let me say this once: This happens to be one of, if not the best, horror film ever made. From it's source book, to it's superb direction by Roman Polanski, it's terrific cast(and Mia Farrow was robbed of an oscar nomination, by the way) down to it's wonderful location scenery, this film is one-of-a-kind. This is horror that derives from character as much as from shock value, which there is virtually none in this film. What I love about this film is that we discover everything as Rosemary does. It lends the horror an added emphasis. As we feel we are going through everything Rosemary is. And I cannot stress the importance of Farrow's terrific portrayal(as a matter of face, Frank Sinatra had Farrow served with divorce papers during the making of the film). I don't think she's ever been this good. Anyway, don't listen to the one reviewer. This is a terrifc film that deserves and rewards patience. Believe me, The Exorcist was a joke compared to this. And I really don't think that film holds up nearly as well as Rosemary's Baby does.
Rating: 
Summary: Dissappoinment
Review: So was the movie chilling or frightening? The answer is no. I didn't like the movie at all. I may have seen the Exorcist too many times but I think that the movie wasn't scary enough to keep me satisfied. It wasn't a surprise that I was dissappointed after seeing it. It's absolutely not a horror movie only a good psychic thriller. I think that the fault is all Ira Levin's and his original book. Well, he has never been my favourite writer. Of course Roman Polanski is a good film director and Rosemary's Baby were a nice sightseeing into New York in the 60's. But it offered me nothing else.
Rating:
Summary: A great movie-but special features aren't very good
Review: First off-I love this movie. It's probably as close to the book as a movie can be expected to be. However, if you already own this movie and think the special features of the DVD are worth purchasing be wary--in my opinion, it's just a bunch of filler! If you don't own this movie--or if you've never seen it--then I strongly recommend it--but if you're looking for great "extras"-I think you'll be disappointed--I was! Mia Farrow is excellent as Rosemary but Ruth Gordon steals the movie. Easily the best movie Roman Polanski ever made.
Rating: 
Summary: The "Making Of" Featurette is worth the price of the DVD!
Review: I'll get right to the point: BUY THIS! The movie is a classic and features a superb print for DVD release, but also has a surprisingly wonderful 25 min. documentary of the film - made in the late sixties by a man named only "Hatari". It consists of loads of behind the scenes footage on the set: Mia the hippie painting "love and peace" on her stage door, dancing around and giggling like a school kid, and playing around on the set. Polanski is shown meticulously directing everyone, particularly Mia; placing her hand just so on the table, showing her exactly how to observe the baby in the final scene, framing scenes with his hands, and even having a fencing round with Mia! The whole thing is very, very 60's, which to me is far better and much more authentic and interesting than some cold 2000 documentary might have been. It shows how much fun they had making the movie and how much work they put into it, and how they were THEN, at the time of the film's release. Times were much simpler then, filmmaking was much more about quality than money, and the documentary shows, in kind of a sad way, how much times have changed. Mia was the quintessential hippie, very Beatles-ish, and it's impressive how she could have acted so well, after only moments earlier clowning around like a kid on the set. It's also interesting to learn that Tuesday Weld was seriously considered for the role, and wanted badly by Polanski, but finally overruled by the infamous Robert Evans. Fantastic stuff, and very worth the rather high price of the DVD. As for the movie, I'd never seen it before, and being 33, that's a crime! I'd read so many complimentary reviews of it that I knew it had to be special, so I saved it. While I thought it was extremely well-made and well acted, it didn't strike me on my initial viewing as the 5 star classic I'd heard it was. 4, at best. Admittedly, I'd heard too many good things about it for it to live up to my expectations. It made a huge impression on the public back then, and holds up well today, but reviewing it in 2000, as I am, isn't really fair to it. Be that as it may, to say it's "the scariest movie ever made" or "best horror film" is, in my opinion, a gross exaggeration. It's a very suspenseful movie, but not really in the horror genre. The idea was to have it start out as a "Doris Day" type of film, then gradually grow to a horrifying climax, but I found the climax to be disappointing and needlessly ambiguous. In fact it was nearly campy, though I don't mean to say the ending was bad - just not the payoff I was expecting. And they took too long to get to it, with the "everything's normal" set-up. There's only a few kind-of scares in the movie, and none created by supernatural powers; only people. And sorry, but with what we know about Charles Grodin now, he's just not a very scary fellow, nor is Ruth Gordon. Also, John Cassavetes, while doing a decent job in his role, does not have a single scene where he's creepy in any way, which, if he had been, is something that could have helped this film. Polanski wanted him because he 'looked like a NY actor', but ultimately, I think he was miscast. In short, don't expect to be scared out of your wits by this film; see The Exorcist for that. But, if you want to see a truly well-made, eerie, suspensful film, with a wonderfully adapted script and direction by Polanski, and Oscar-caliber acting by Mia Farrow (and Ruth Gordon, who actually did win the Oscar for her acting in this film), Rosemary's Baby will not disappoint. And if you've seen the movie many times already, the documentary will shed new light on it for you. (There's another, later interview with Polanski, too, which focuses mainly on casting). A 5 star DVD, one of the best!
Rating:
Summary: The Evil Within
Review: The Evil in Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby is camouflaged. We never actually see it, we just come to realize it lurks beneath the surfaces. It's in the shadows, it hides in the dark, it's behind innocent gestures, smiles, handshakes and neighborly acts of supposed kindness. It's called the horror film without any horror. Because the horror is within - it's paranoia. The way the film once worked, was in how the suspicions and paranoia grow as we meet the various characters. We wonder what some of the characters are up to, and then when Rosemary begins to decide that everyone around her is a member of a satanic cult, we believe Rosemary may going insane. The film is too famous and too well known for it to work as it once did. You have to pretend you don't know where it will end up. You have to forget about films like The Exorcist, or The Omen. In a horror film arena where some of the subtle techniques established by Polanski, Hitchcock, and (Michael) Powell have been reinvented by Argento, Carpenter, Craven, Cronenburg, and then over exaggerated and turned into a Grand Guignoll circus by special effects wizards like Tom Savinni and lately by computer generated shock effects, it's not easy for a fairly subtle, slowly paced film, to even get the chance of getting under-neath a younger film watcher's skin. Rosemary is a very adult film. It won't play at all to a younger audience who craves gore from a horror film, as much as it craves bigger and bigger explosions from action films. A couple of no effect fist fights will hardly do in an action film, and unfortunately some growing psychological and psycho-sexual horror will hardly do for a horror film unless it leads to a spectacular climax. There is nothing over-the top in Rosemary's Baby. The use of music and sound, of light, of camera lenses, of framing and of angles is Polanski at his best. He makes the normal ominous, not by trickery, but by knowing we have expectations,and turning those expectations upside down and inside out. He's not doing this with musical cues or elaborate tracking shots, or use of lots of dry ice. He does it with a minimum of trickery. Well actually with very very subtle trickery. The right camera lense adds just the right amount of distortion, or focus to a frame to accomplish what Polanski is after. Paranoia. We are set up from the very beginning of this quietly manipulative film. The pink credits, the quite lullabye where they lyrics consists of a breathy la la la la, as we get an elaborately conceived series of shots establishing the gothic apartment building most of the film will take place in. It's called the Bramford in the film. It's the Dakota in real life. John Lennon was shot and killed here in 1980. Into the courtyard of this surprisingly large labrynthian structure walks a young couple, Rosemary (Mia Farrow - who was well known only from t.v.'s Peyton Place and from her controversial marriage to a much older Frank Sinatra) and John Cassevettes (- an up and coming STUDIO New York Actor and independent film-maker : Shadows and Faces ). In Cassavettes hands, Guy, makes a fascinating villain . At times he is sullenly indifferent to Rosemary (not very sympathetic at all to the pain his wife suffers during her pregnancy), but he isn't really a bad guy is he? He's head over heels obsessed with his career as an actor, but not with his wife. He acts the part of a good husband when it suits him, and when it doesn't, well, she loves him so he must be such a heel after all. It's to Cassavettes and Polanski's credit they don't soften the character, they don't manipulate us by making him more likeable which would have been easy to do. The result is a character you begin to dislike more and more. You have to stop excusing his behavior, and realize Guy's almost sadistic in his treatment of his wife, who is beautiful, vulnerable, and hopelessly in love with an opportunist. Yet Rosemary is never completely helpless. This makes what occurs all the more horrifying. She is not helpless, yet she is almost powerless. She's in quicksand but by the time she realizes she's sinking, it's almost too late. She and consequently we are given a little hope, but it's clearly false hope. The film has many similarities to Polish writer/director's classic REPULSION - which is the film producer Robert (Mr. Ali McGraw, Chinatown, Cotton Club Murder) Evans saw which convinced him Polanski had to direct Ira Levin's best selling novel, Rosemary's Baby. William Castle... the gimmick prone director of cult camp classics such as The Tingler, House on Haunted Hill and 13 Ghosts, bought the rights to the book, but Evans insisted that Castle would have to be content to produce the film and let Polanski direct. It was one of Evans best decisions to let Rosemary's Baby be Roman Polanski first American film. Castle did produce the film and appears outside of a phone booth very noticeably in the film. As in Repulsion there is a long dream-like sequence full of disturbing imagery. Later in the film some of the imagery is repeated and it's link to the dream sequence should register with alert viewers and begin to make the subtle horror of the film become more urgent, more real. It was Polanski's idea to cast several veteran actors in the film like: Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer, and Ralph Bellamy. Ruth Gordon was more famous as a former stage actress and a writer with her husband Garson Kanin. Ruth Gordon won a deserved Academy Award for her portrayal of Minnie, the nosy elderly neighbor. She invests so much into her role, it's impossible not to enjoy the energy and quirkiness. Sometimes she's even doing too much....but she's irresistible. You'll also see an early Charles Grodin performance here as well. Polanski proved himself to a wider American audience with Rosemary's Baby which was a box-office smash. He found a way to show us how evil can lurk within what looks to be completely normal and mundane. Christopher J. Jarmick, Author of The Glass Cocoon...
Rating:
Summary: Social more than satanical
Review: One of Stephen King's favorite films. Why ? Polanski goes beyong anything we can imagine in reincarnating the devil, in bringing the antechrist into this world. The son of Satan is born, like Christ, from a woman, but without her consent, except of course the consent of the husband who gets some good and hefty kick-backs in his profession (he is an actor). But the whole film is not so much to explore that diabolical side of things, but rather the social and psychological sides of the event. The mother is thus described in full details, day after day, and her developing psychosis is the main thread of the thrilling suspense Polanski builds it shot after shot in the film. And the trap is unescapable, and the psychosis has to be lived through and overcome. And her maternal instinct will definitely do it though the film remains open on the issue. The second level of exploration is social : we could consider that project of a manipulation of the pregnancy of this woman, or rather of the manipulation of this woman as a mother, as a criminal act, especially since it goes against the will of the mother herself, but the whole society has absolutely no human recourse against this enterprise. The mother is totally abandoned and everyone is giving a helping hand in the project, just as if the whole society, even if it is only for a bunch of greenbacks, was endorsing the project of bringing that satanical child into the world. It is disquieting and very unsettling, not so much because it is the devil's son, but because there is no way for the victim to escape the situation, to be protected. Society, be it only because of its love of money, is endowed with the will and desire and interest and acceptance of such a project. It is thus an allegory of evil in the world. It is produced by our good financially-minded society and by our materialistic minded neighbors. This even regenerates the diabolical project into some respectful dimension because the project itself is not material and money-greedy. No matter what the project would be, something that may change habits and customs, that may break routines and humdrum everyday boredom would be endorsed by society, by all kinds of people, just for the sake of an evasion from sickening money and the love of material riches. Is the film optimistic ? I doubt it. It is a deeply pessimistic vision of human nature in our present phase of human development, what some people call post-modernism. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Paris Universities II and IX.
Rating:
Summary: absolutely wonderful
Review: There's nothing more I can say about this movie. I fell in love with it the first time I saw it when I was about 15 or so. There's nothing better in my mind than a cult movie. For Polanski to have wrote this is sheer genius in my opinion. To bring the hidden side of life out and to expose it for what everyone thinks it is is one thing but to bring it out in such a way to make you think about it is another.
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