Chiasmus cult cinema trailers - "Rosemary's Baby" (1968). *These will be ongoing posts, courtesy of the A.Glass DVD collection. As I offer via Chiasmus Cult trailers, my summarized overviews*

How do you define one of the greatest psychological horror movies ever made, Roman Polanski's 1968 "Rosemary's Baby"?  Adapted from the book of the same name, written by Ira Levin and published in 1967.  In some ways, it can't be done, despite the obvious themes of satanism and witchcraft, it is purely a psychologically driven drama, about a real conspiracy against a younger woman "Rosemary Woodhouse", played with a beautiful innocence by Mia Farrow.  And this conspiracy involves the husband she loves, "Guy Woodhouse", played by John Cassavetes and her new neighbours, to which she has built up a trust with, yet remains suspicions of their true intentions, within the famous "Dakota" apartment block in Manhattan, fictionally named the "Bramford".  After Rosemary and her husband, a struggling actor, decide to rent a large apartment, as Rosemary begins to redecorate, after the former tenant passed away, leaving clues to the hidden secrets on the 7th floor.   Namely a large wardrobe, pulled up against a linen closet.   

And once Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse settle in, the eccentric, yet obviously malevolent elderly couple, "Minnie and Roman Castevet" who share the dividing walls of the Woodhouse's apartment.  The Castevet's begin to weave a scheme (after a young woman living with them commits suicide) to become closer to the Woodhouse's, specifically Rosemary's husband Guy, inviting them to dinner.  With a very subtle scene, before dinner drinks, of seduction and conjuring, by Roman Castevet towards Rosemary's husband (Guy), aware of his attempt at landing a role as an actor.  He views Guy's obsessive desire to make it in the acting world, as way of manipulating him  Thus, he is brought into the inner circle of Castevet's coven, and the conspiracy to have a phantasm of Satan impregnate Rosemary begins, with the promise that he will become a big star.  Exploiting his wife for fame, and abiding to the Castevet's wishes, Rosemary is drugged by a chocolate mousse that Minnie Castevet has concocted, despite Rosemary detected an undertaste, she is convinced to eat the mousse by her husband.  To which she passes out, and then is ceremonially raped, whilst being viewed by the coven, via a conjured Satan later that night.  Waking up the next morning with scratches on her back and shoulders, she is convinced by her husband that it was him, that she had sex with while she was unconscious, to conceive the baby they have always wanted.  And in a creepy scene, revealing her husband's true intention and is lack of care for Rosemary's welfare, that he forget to clip his nails (hence the scratches), and saying, "It was kinda fun in a necrophile sort of way."  

Setting the stage, of the torment, physically pain and mental distress that Rosemary is put through by all the coven, including an obstetrician, "Dr Abraham Sapirstein", played by Ralph Bellamy, as they feed her various herbs and drinks, to nourish the antichrist in her womb, as she becomes more physically ill and mentally distressed.  Until her former landlord, "Hutch", played by Maurice Evans, aware of the nefarious history of the Bramford apartment block and the history of witchcraft within its walls, tries to warn Rosemary of what maybe occurring to her, and the connection, validating her own suspicion, of the Castevet's.  However Hutch is cursed by the Castevet's, and goes into a coma and dies.  Attending Hutch's funeral, she is given a book by a friend of Hutch, titled "All Them Witches" with an anagram clue, to which Rosemary, using a scrabble board, works out through the book and its title, the link to Castevet's satanic history.  And how her husband, through his lust for fame and fortune has allowed her to be used by the Castevet's, to give birth to the antichrist.  

"Rosemary Baby" certainly did not paint a rosy picture of witchcraft or satanism, as the counterculture years rolled on into the 1970s and 1980s, and the interest in Left Hand Path rituals and satanism gained traction, so did the infamous and absurd "Satanic Panic", which occurred throughout the 1980s.  Rosemary's Baby was written twenty years earlier, using the witchcraft/satanism more as a backstory, in portraying feminist themes of a young woman being stifling by conservatism, denying choices over her own body, and the confines of oppressive marriage, dominated by a chauvinist, misogynistic and belittling husband. 

The conclusion of "Rosemary Baby", is maternal in its sentiment, after Rosemary is forcefully tied to a bed, drugged and then gives birth to her baby, to which she is further drugged and convinced, once again, by her husband that it was all in her head, despite breast milk being drawn from her daily, to feed her baby which she hears crying through the walls, that is the Castevet's apartment.  Rosemary, armed with a kitchen knife, enters the secret door way, through her linien closet, walking into the Castevet's apartment, eyeing the coven gathering around an ornamented, black satin cradle, with an inverted cross atop of it.  She views her baby, a screams the famous line, "What have you done to his eyes, you maniacs!"  As Roman Castevet, says, "He has his father's eyes".  Spitting in her husband's face, after he says they can have children of their own once they move to Hollywood, she walks calmingly towards the cradle, and gently rocks it, looking down, in a loving manner, at her baby. 

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(A.Glass 2025)

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