Home :: DVD :: Horror :: General  

Classic Horror & Monsters
Cult Classics
Frighteningly Funny
General

Series & Sequels
Slasher Flicks
Teen Terror
Television
Things That Go Bump
Rosemary's Baby

Rosemary's Baby

List Price: $14.98
Your Price: $11.98
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 .. 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 .. 17 >>

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Didnt like it
Review: I didnt like this movie all too much... I thought it would be great but whats so scarey about it? I guess in my young age I dont understand what its like to have satans child but I still thought it was dumb and not scary at all. I have watch alot of horror movies... ALOT! And this one shouldnt be one of them its not even scary... If you are looking for thrills and chills look somewhere else because this movie is purely made for people who are scared VERY easily.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Pretty Good
Review: This is definately on of the scariest movies ever made! 4.5 out 5 stars! It's a little slow in the middle. This film isn't for everybody though, this one gives you authentic scares! This isn't for everyone. You have to use your imagination and put yourself in the characters shoes. Works in every movie. But if you are one of those who just don't care about story, or just to lazy to think, and just want thrills, Then rent Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.This has the perfect ending! This isn't as scary as The Omen or The Exorcist, but it's right up there with them! Definately worth checking out!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: a good story with a exellent actress
Review: but the one thing that i didnt exepted is the end of the movie i didnt exept it like that, it wasnt on my mind i was thinking that something terrible will happening when i saw the movie at the first but i cant tell it`s a bad! it`s not couse it is an old movie you exept any thing couse its old but at the end it is a classic movie i cant say it`s horror half by half

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Say a prayer for Rosemary
Review: This film doesn't really seem to fit in one genre. Some call it a suspense film, others say it's horror. No doubt,this film is in a class of it's own, as is the film's director.
In this movie, a young couple by the name of Rosemary and Guy move into an apartment in New York. Rosemary is a housewife, Guy is an aspiring actor. The apartment they move into was owned by a woman who died in mysterious circumstances, the next door neighbours are an elderly couple named Roman and Minnie.
When the young woman living with them dies from an apparent suicide, Rosemary reaches out to them, and they accpet her friendship with a lot more than just open arms.
Rosemary falls pregnant, but instead of being a joyous occasion, bizarre and deadly events begin to happen all around Rosemary. And it all seems to revolve around her unborn child, she soon becomes convinced that the couple next door belong to a coven and that they want her baby for their own evil purposes. But with no friends, and nobody to believe her Rosemary begins to fight against the conspiracy, believing that her own husband is involved too.
This has all of the trademark Polanski things: an apartment, a main character whose sanity and grip on reality you come to question, claustrophobic settings.
This was the film that made Mia Farrow a bona fide star, eclipsing that of her then husband Frank Sinatra. It also made Roman Polanski a household name in America.
This film is more a suspense than a horror film, but nevertheless it is superb in every way.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: what have you done to it's eyes
Review: great movie. this film is an excellent horror film. ruth gordon played a real nut in this one. imagine having this done to you. you never know what may take place in having a baby. rosemary's baby is one of the best.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Okay, could've been better.
Review: This had a great story, a rather creepy intro, scary chanting, and great ending. Why three stars you ask? Because the rest of the movie is down right boring. There should have been some other occurences to keep you interested. Instead for what felt like two hours they spent time on Rosemary, and everyday life. The Exorcist and The Omen are much scarier than this! And don't try that excuse "Oh you just like movies with gore." No I'm not tied down to a particular genre of horror, and could careless if there is any gore in it at all. If I wanted gore I would have rented Dead Alive, and Not this. If you thought Scream was scary, then don't watch this, it is for smart people and is much to mature and intelligent for you.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: "Rosemary's Baby": The Funniest Horror Classic I Know
Review: In the interest of full disclosure, let me say this: I am not a fan of horror movies. Be they psychological thrillers, like "The Sixth Sense", gore fests, like "The Exorcist", or slasher flicks, like the Freddy and Jason films, I generally find the suspense artificial and the frights hollow. "Rosemary's Baby", ostensibly a classic horror film in most senses of the phrase, didn't scare me a lick.

But it is pretty darn funny.

Not funny in the way that most dated movies are funny, where the wacky clothes and corny dialogue elicit unintended howls from an audience several decades removed from the fashions. "Rosemary's Baby" is dated in that way, but not so much that I hold anything against it. It is funny because, I'd hazard to guess, it was meant to be funny! Follow me closely, here. You've got Minnie Castevet (Ruth Gordon), with her rat-a-tat nosiness and penchant for flaky floral prints and clown make-up. There's Guy Woodhouse (John Cassavetes) and his goofy shenanigans, always cracking wise and making goofy faces to lighten the mood. And there's the sometimes self-consciously ridiculous dialogue (when ridding herself of some nasty herbs called Tannis root, which were sent over by her neighbours, Rosemary remarks to the camera, "Tannis anyone?"). I think Roman Polanski, in adapting Ira Levin's book, found the concept of a young woman chosen to bear Satan's baby inherently ridiculous, and thus quite amusing. And even if this isn't his intention, the movie can, now at least, be read this way. And laughed at.

I suspect, though, that many of you will want the good old-fashioned horror from "Rosemary's Baby". I may have been a tad facetious when I said it didn't scare me a lick. For it did. There are genuinely scary moments, most confined to the film's last half hour. Before that, though, it is a finely constructed domestic drama, wherein a fragile and frail woman, married to a moody and self-centred actor, gets pregnant. Alone in the big city, tormented by neighbours whom she finds annoying and cloying, Rosemary must learn to deal with her new surroundings and her new physical state. That last half hour, and believe me the outcome is in doubt until she goes through the door in her closet, are riveting, sometimes over-the-top, but always entertaining in a I-wonder-what'll-happen-next kind of way. It's an absurd, surreal, and warped denouement, during which the humour falls away and the suspense over what is happening intensifies.

Director Polanski constantly keeps things interesting, even during the most banal of scenes. He gets a lot of mileage out of putting his camera in odd places, never filming the Woodhouse's apartment from the same angle twice (good that he had a lot of ideas, for 90% of the film takes place in that apartment; better keep it interesting). Also, he does an excellent job filling both the foreground and the background in his shot compositions. I'm thinking of two similar scenes, each involving someone on the phone in the background, while the spouse looks on worriedly in the foreground. Not only does it use the mise en scene and depth of focus quite well, but it also metaphorically shows the divisions in the marriage, even before the more dramatic moments begin.

The cast, if I may say, always appears to be in on the joke. Except for Mia Farrow, who, as Rosemary, must be the rational centre of the film. Farrow gets more mileage here out of her look than her acting, although that's not a criticism of her performance. She is suitably wired and frightened when she needs to be, while maintaining a certain domestic bliss the rest of the time. But I'm thinking more of her changing appearance. She goes from having a healthy but thin frame, to looking "chalky" and bony, to a recovery of her strength just in time to face the last act. And then there's the matter of her haircut, which comes out of the blue, and makes her a rather iconic image. I've never really enjoyed Farrow's work, having mostly encountered her in Woody Allen's movies, but as Rosemary, I bought every second that she was on screen.

Polanski seems to have a natural affinity for working with directors as actors (the two most memorable performances in "Chinatown", arguably, are John Huston as Noah Cross and Polanski himself as the Man With Knife). That rule is further proven here, for John Cassavetes shows a lot of effective colours as Ro's husband, Guy. He's sprightly and lively in most scenes, but also ably shows the man's selfishness and desperation. Cassavetes, who pioneered realism and improvisation in his work as a director, shows here that he has the chops to pull both off when in front of the camera rather than behind it.

Fine support is given by Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer as the Castevets (she won the Oscar for a prodigious exhibition in scenery chewing), Ralph Bellamy as a suspicious obstetrician, Charles Grodin playing it low-key as a rival obstetrician, and Maurice Evans as a skeptical old friend of the Woodhouse's who does his best to avert danger.

I didn't go in with high expectations for "Rosemary's Baby". And I suspect if I found it a typical horror film, those expectations would have been met. But it turned out to be something wholly original and self-aware, and I found myself leaving the theatre marveling at what I'd just seen.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Horror Film!
Review: I love this movie! If you described it to someone it would sound so dull and common but the way it is played out gives the the story a creepy feel to it and you just don't know what is going to happen next. I think this is Mia Farrow's all-time best movie. I've never seen her in anything better and I think this was her first.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: "Pray for Rosemary's Baby"
Review: This is the greatest horror film, and one of the greatest films ever, period.

Everything in it works. From that terrific tag line to the creepy poster art, to that off kilter lullaby Mia Farrow croons, to every single performance, line of dialogue and scene. The cast is perfection. The terror is palpable. The extras set the movie in its time, but the movie has surpased its time and become, like all true classics, for the ages. The Bramley will never be razed for a parking lot. Ira Levin's superb novel was blessed by Roman Polanski's film. Both are landmarks touched with more than a little genius.

The movie is wickedly funny, deliciously entrancing, groundbreakingly "real" because it's horror is set in present day New York; also, the elderly couple next door, who are the coven leaders, are played to the hilt by nosey Ruth Gordon and the intriguing Sidney Blackmer; therefore, it's easy to come under their spell. Blackmer especially gives an almost noble performance that is rich and wise. The entire cast is at the top of their game.

Maurice Evan's Hutch is the hope and comfort of the film, the logical reality against what is inexorably happening, while Ralph Bellamy's Dr. Saperstein (he was on "Open End," you know)is that soft spoken easygoing evil that you just know hides a little below the surface of most of his ilk. It's also fun seeing Hope Summers (Clara Edwards of "The Andy Griffith Show") as a Satanist. Not out of character here, really. Did Aunt Bea ever find out?

It's ironic that the movie probably could not be made today. The current crop of puritans would rail against it; odd, since the bare bones of the plot hew to what they say they believe. But while those lame Left Behind movies and the others artlessly propound beating foolish stuff into its audiences heads, "Rosemary's Baby" plays knowingly with fiction, with what ifs, with the paranoia come true, all in a twisty gripping eerie exciting film, produced by the great William Castle, who has just the right cameo that comes with the chill first, then the laughter.

Mia Farrow's heart wrenching Rosemary Woodhouse leads us into her terror and pain, then into her first goosebumpy nightmare come true reaction to her son, propelling into that final reaction, maybe even scarier, as the camera wisely pans to the window and the outside of the Bramley. There are some fine character actors as well, always dependable Elisha Cook, Jr. Philip Leeds and Patsy Kelly.

John Cassavetes, as Guy Woodhouse, also creeps us out as he sells himself and Rosemary, and I guess, their baby, and the world, to Satan, to further his acting career. Being in bit parts in "Luther" and "Nobody Loves an Albatross" can only take an actor just so far. Priorities, after all. So settle down with some "plain old Lipton Tea," a bowl of "chocolate mouse" and a Vodkda Blush, and watch a classic again or for the first time. Watch out for mouse bites, though.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This is, in my opinion, the best horror film ever.
Review: It's true that some people do not get this movie. Those who were raised on the "Jason" movies, and other such movies, are going to be inclined to find this movie utterly uninteresting. The reason is that while most modern horror films such as the "Jason" flicks rely on gore and people popping out of closets, Roman Polanski's classic movie, "Rosemary's Baby," relys, in essence, on innate maternal paranoia.

Polanski slowly (but masterfully, I assure you) builds a sinister, haunting, but not obvious tone. What I mean by that is this. The movie feels real. It was made in the late '60s, sure, so us younger folk won't be able to relate quite as much, but the movie is authentic. The characters don't feel like they're reciting a book of poetry they read earlier in the evening. Rosemary (played awesomely by Mia Farrow) and Guy Woodhouse seem just like an ordinary couple in the early stages of their relationship. The two love-birds happen to be planning to have a baby. And that kid is, essentially, what stirs up so much darned creepiness. From the sympathy we all want to feel for Rosemary (and as an extension, of course, her kid) to those primal, eternally disturbing words at the end of the movie by Rosemary relating to the child's eyes. At first we want to find out that we have simply been led on, and there is absolutely nothing wrong. And then we want to think that Rosemary has simply gone insane. That's what we want. That's what we hope. But (and perhaps not) it seems we don't get what we hope for. The dreaded happens, and we will never forget it.

This movie is horrific in the best sense. If you're a fan of horror flicks (or film in general) watch this movie, please. This is, in my opinion, the best horror film ever. It's better, dare I say it, than a certain other classic horror movie. (You know which one I'm talking about.) And that's saying quite a bit. Hail, Polanski!


<< 1 .. 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 .. 17 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates