Editorials
50 Years Later, ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ Still Terrifies and Inspires Modern Horror Hits
“This is no dream! This is really happening!”
First released in theaters 50 years ago, on June 12, 1968, Rosemary’s Baby changed horror as we know it today, effectively inspiring a new wave of horror that forever altered the genre and paving the way for major hits like The Exorcist. Based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Ira Levin, released just the year before, Rosemary’s Baby won over audiences and critics, earning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Ruth Gordon, and was eventually selected for preservation in the National Film Registry for being historically and culturally significant. Rosemary’s Baby remains an all-time great horror film, but like most trailblazers, the path to forge new territory came with blood, sweat, and tears behind the scenes.
Rosemary’s Baby nearly became an entirely different film before production even began. Hoping to segue into a more prestigious career with Oscar-winning potential, B-movie gimmick horror director William Castle immediately knew Ira Levin’s novel had major potential to give him what he was looking for and mortgaged his home to purchase movie rights. Having a contract with Paramount, he went to them with the pitch to direct. They, however, wanted young up and comer Roman Polanski and offered Castle a producer’s role instead. Backed into a corner, and not wanting to tie up the project financially for years to come, Castle begrudgingly accepted. Castle’s inputs on the film were minor, at least from an artistic standpoint, and his dreams of mainstream respectability were never realized as he suffered from kidney failure soon after the film’s release. Even still, without Castle’s recognition of Levin’s novel about a housewife pregnant with the Antichrist, Rosemary’s Baby wouldn’t exist as we know it.
For his part, Polanski immediately keyed in on the story element that would make Rosemary’s Baby so effective and chilling; deception. Polanski wanted to focus on the story from Rosemary’s perspective only, relying on ambiguity of the supernatural and using it to create an anxiety in the audience. Rosemary, played effectively by Mia Farrow, is the epitome of a ‘50s housewife. Eager to please her husband and eager to have a baby, Rosemary puts the needs of everyone else before hers, especially when her health is at stake. Even when she wakes after that fateful night thinking her husband has raped her, she’s quick to forgive. All the while, ominous signs are around her that things may or may not be all in her head. That Rosemary’s fate is almost never in her own control lends to the overall feeling of anxious helplessness that pervades the narrative; the only two decisions in the film that are entirely her own is her choice to move into the Bramford apartment and to give in to her maternal instincts in the closing moments. Any time Rosemary dares to stand up for herself she’s consistently manipulated by those around her. Those she’s meant to trust. Anyone who does genuinely seek to help Rosemary is quickly eliminated.
Polanski further played with deception in terms of what Satanists look like. These weren’t the Gothic characters, ominous and robed, seen before. These were welcoming neighbors in New York City. Roman and Minnie Castavet were nosy, elderly neighbors who dress their age and bring home-baked goods (albeit drugged). Dr. Sapirstein, her appointed doctor by the Castavets, is renounced in his field; no one would ever suspect that he too is a member of the coven planning to usher in the Antichrist. The opening credits are conveyed via pink cursive over a panning cityscape, a style choice that gives the opposite impression of a horror film. Polanski’s final decision would solidify the film’s greatness; he never showed us the Devil. By refusing to show the audience the Devil, it forever remains etched in the nightmares of imagination.
Despite the ambiguity that would deeply root Rosemary’s journey in psychological terror, it’s no surprise that the film stirred up controversy after release. The Catholic League protested, The National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures gave it a condemned rating, and some theaters even banned it from playing. It didn’t stop the film from becoming a money maker at the box office. Rosemary’s Baby-inspired a slew of Satanic horror soon after, but its effects on the genre are much more profound than that. It took the ultimate battle between good versus evil and put it in the seemingly mundane home of a vulnerable housewife. Sweet, eager-to-please Rosemary whose internal struggle with her faith is only barely hinted at became the mother to the Antichrist without her consent. Even 50 years later, that’s still terrifying.
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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