|
|
Rosemary’s Baby(1968 / R)
Nearly two and a half hours of viewer pain. This extremely long and drawn out movie
(did I mention it was extremely long and drawn out?) is about a couple that moves into
an apartment across the way from the leaders of a coven of witches. Rosemary Woodhouse
(Mia Farrow) spends the length of the movie as a whiney, high maintenance housewife to
her husband Guy (John Cassavetes) who is nursing his failing acting career.
After a half hour of useless character building, Guy gets an acting break and suddenly
gives in to Rosemary’s whining about wanting to have a baby. What she doesn’t know is
that Guy made a pact with the friendly neighborhood witches so that they can have
Rosemary carry the child of Satan for them in exchange for Guy getting a good acting
role. After a drug induced romp with Satan, Rosemary thinks that things aren’t all
they’re cracked up to be and goes to a doctor. When the witches find out, they refer
her to the "best doctor in the area" (another witch), and they give her special vitamin
drinks made from all sorts of witchly things.
After two more painful hours (for her and the viewers), the witches drug her again,
take her baby from her, and tell her it died in labor. She believes this since she
isn’t very bright in the movie, but the witches aren’t very good at covering this up
and she hears it crying through her apartment wall. With renewed hope, she gets into
the witches’ apartment through a secret door only to find out that she just had Satan’s
baby. In a heart touching moment though, her inner mother comes out and she decides to
take care of it even if it will someday grow up to be the bane of all humanity.
Apparently, the morale of the story is that if you’re pregnant, everyone is out to get
you, and they’re all witches. In hindsight, I think the most painful part of this
movie was that there was no soundtrack so it was much like watching a play on film.
Lots of silence.
Redeeming factors:
- Even though it was painfully slow, the movie did have a pretty good plot and the witch tie-ins were done fairly well.
- You never see the baby. This was good as the special effects wouldn't have been so special in 1968.
- It’s supposedly set in and around the Dakota building (of John Lennon fame) thought it doesn’t mention it by name.
|
|
|
