Packaging Back
Packaging Bookend Spine
Packaging Front

Rosemary's Baby

Catalog Number
068318
-
Primary Distributor (If not listed, select "OTHER")
Distributor Series
Release Year
Country
VHS | N/A | Slipcase
N/A (NTSC)
N/A | N/A | N/A
N/A | N/A
Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Additional Information

Additional Information
Pray for Rosemary's Baby

In Roman Polanski's first American film, adapted from Ira Levin's horror bestseller, a young wife comes to believe that her offspring is not of this world. Waifish Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) and her struggling actor husband, Guy (John Cassavetes), move into the Bramford, an old New York City apartment building with an ominous reputation and only elderly residents. Neighbors Roman and Minnie Castevet (Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon) soon come nosing around to welcome the Woodhouses to the building; despite Rosemary's reservations about their eccentricity and the weird noises that she keeps hearing, Guy starts spending time with the Castevets. Shortly after Guy lands a plum Broadway role, Minnie starts showing up with homemade chocolate mousse for Rosemary. When Rosemary becomes pregnant after a mousse-provoked nightmare of being raped by a beast, the Castevets take a special interest in her welfare. As the sickened Rosemary becomes increasingly isolated, she begins to suspect that the Castevets' circle is not what it seems. The diabolical truth is revealed only after Rosemary gives birth, and the baby is taken away from her. Polanski's camerawork and Richard Sylbert's production design transform the realistic setting (shot on-location in Manhattan's Dakota apartment building) into a sinister projection of Rosemary's fears, chillingly locating supernatural horror in the familiar by leaving the most grotesque frights to the viewer's imagination. This apocalyptic yet darkly comic paranoia about the hallowed institution of childbirth touched a nerve with late-'60s audiences feeling uneasy about traditional norms. Produced by B-horror maestro William Castle, Rosemary's Baby became a critically praised hit, winning Gordon an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Inspiring a wave of satanic horror from The Exorcist (1973) to The Omen (1976), Rosemary's Baby helped usher in the genre's modern era by combining a supernatural story with Alfred Hitchcock's propensity for finding normality horrific.

Rosemary's Baby is a 1968 American psychological horror film written and directed by Roman Polanski, based on the bestselling 1967 novel Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin. The cast includes Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Ralph Bellamy, Maurice Evans, Sidney Blackmer and Charles Grodin (in his first film appearance). It was produced by William Castle.
Farrow plays a pregnant woman who fears that her husband may have made a pact with their eccentric neighbors, believing he may have promised them the child to be used as a human sacrifice in their occult rituals in exchange for success in his acting career.
The film was an enormous commercial success, earning over $33 million in the United States on a modest budget of $3.2 million. It was met with near universal acclaim from film critics and earned numerous nominations and awards. The American Film Institute ranked the film 9th in their 100 Years...100 Thrills list. The official tagline of the film is "Pray for Rosemary's Baby."


n her review for The New York Times, Renata Adler said, "The movie—although it is pleasant—doesn't seem to work on any of its dark or powerful terms. I think this is because it is almost too extremely plausible. The quality of the young people's lives seems the quality of lives that one knows, even to the point of finding old people next door to avoid and lean on. One gets very annoyed that they don't catch on sooner."[4]
Variety stated, "Several exhilarating milestones are achieved in Rosemary's Baby, an excellent film version of Ira Levin's diabolical chiller novel. Writer-director Roman Polanski has triumphed in his first US-made pic. The film holds attention without explicit violence or gore...Farrow's performance is outstanding."[5] Ruth Gordon won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress which made the film the only horror movie to receive an Oscar for a lead or supporting role until The Silence of the Lambs (1991).[6]
Today, the film is widely regarded as a classic; the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gave the movie a 98% rating (53 out of 54 reviews), with the site's consensus stating "A frightening tale of satanism and pregnancy that is even more disturbing than it sounds thanks to convincing and committed performances by Mia Farrow and Ruth Gordon"


Following the film's premiere, a string of other films focusing on Satan worshippers and black magic appeared, including The Brotherhood of Satan, Mark of the Devil, Black Noon, and Blood on Satan's Claw.
In the 1976 television film, Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby, Patty Duke starred as Rosemary Woodhouse and Ruth Gordon reprised her role of Minnie Castevet. It was disliked as a sequel and its reputation deteriorated over the years.
The scene in which Rosemary is raped by Satan was ranked #23 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.
Thirty years after he wrote Rosemary's Baby, Ira Levin wrote Son of Rosemary, a sequel which he dedicated to the film's star, Mia Farrow. Reaction to the book was mixed, but it made the best seller lists nationwide.[citation needed]
A remake of Rosemary's Baby was briefly considered in 2008. The intended producers were Michael Bay, Andrew Form, and Brad Fuller.[8] The remake fell through later that same year

Release Date: June 13, 1968

Distrib: Paramount


Boxoffice: $33,395,426 2013: $208,020,363

Related Releases3

Comments0

Login / Register to post comments

4

0