Reviews and recommendations on the Compelling Beasts blog are my honest opinion. I purchase the books, comics, and movies that I recommend and review and I do not accept free copies for review.
The original Rosemary’s Baby (1968) is one of the best horror movies I have ever seen. I have watched it countless times over the years. Every character is perfectly portrayed and if you like a frightening movie without a lot of gore, it’s a good one to watch.
I like remakes and enjoy seeing various interpretations of favorite characters and stories, so I looked forward to sitting down to watch the remake of Rosemary’s Baby. There were many things I liked about this version.
The overall acting was very good. Rosemary (Zoe Saldana) was well acted and nearly as stupidly submissive as the original Rosemary (Mia Farrow). While her husband Guy (Patrick J. Adams) was self-centered and loathsome, he wasn’t quite as hateful as the original Guy (John Cassavetes).
One of the most significant differences between this movie and the first was in this version, Roman Castavet (Jason Isaacs) and his wife Margaux (Carole Bouquet ) are younger and more stylish than the Roman and Minnie (Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon) in the original movie. I liked both versions and in both movies these were my favorite characters.
Another major difference between the movies is this one is gorier than the first. To me, the blatant violence worked better than the lack of it. Seeing the painful, bloody results of the curses made the witches’ acts more real and terrifying. In the original, when the character Hutch (Maurice Evans) went into a coma, it was off screen and the viewer was spared watching any suffering that preceded his death. In the remake, Hutch’s counterpart Julie (Christina Cole) suffered visibly before her death. Others might feel differently, but to me seeing the explicit violence he caused made Roman more despicable than in the original movie.
This movie was longer than the first, and I’m not sure if the added length was necessary, but overall I enjoyed it and found Rosemary’s Baby a remake worth watching.
Links courtesy of IMDb.