Starring the beloved Mia Farrow as Rosemary Woodhouse, Rosemary’s Baby is a classic psychological horror film from 1968. Based on a book by the same name by Ira Levin, the movie has an all-encompassing mythology with supernatural components, Satanism, and Satanic-witchcraft. The plot of the movie is essentially about the gaslighting of a pregnant woman by a group of Satanists who want to co-opt her pregnancy, by way of rape and ritualistic magic, to usher in the child of Satan. While the depiction of witchcraft and witches is certainly negative and regressive, it remains one of the most significant movies on this genre, and still manages to convey vital themes about the occult.
If you haven’t seen this movie, it would be the perfect addition to your October lineup, and will certainly get you in the mood for Halloween. The film shows various themes mentioned throughout my series, perhaps in the most upfront and visible way out of all movies discussed. Throughout the film, the marginalization of female autonomy is certainly highlighted, as the entire collective society is working in tandem to isolate our poor Rosemary. Rosemary knows deep in her bones that something is very wrong, but the physicians, neighbors, and even her husband are all in on it. This mental warfare against Rosemary has been committed for centuries against all women, leaving the same feelings of hysteria and madness that Rosemary has.
For the sake of this series, I’ve picked out the enigmatic and absurd Minnie Castavet to feature, Rosemary’s nosey neighbor and apparent Satanic High Priestess. Minnie is gaudy, extravagant, and through-and-through a New Yorker. Minnie originally gains Rosemary’s trust, however, she has ulterior motives and uses this trust against the unsuspecting young woman. Inundating her with gifts, desserts, and other ploys, Minnie breaks Rosemary down from the inside. Most notable is the captivating pendant that Minnie gives Rosemary, filled with a noxious smelling “tannis root” that works as a kind of magic charm to further their occult purposes.
Minnie is a religious zealot, and as such, has entirely devoted herself to her cause. I’d like to say that she’s in so deep that she clearly doesn’t realize the horrible atrocities that she’s committing, but thats inaccurate. Minnie knows exactly what she’s doing, and in this way, is one of the most villainous and horrific characters in this series. I often try to find something redeeming in these witches, but other than her brilliant portrayal and the character’s eclectic style choices, Minnie is without question diabolical. While the part of me that is trying to further the cause of witchcraft and the perception of a witch should be opposed to that, I really idolize it. She’s a character unlike any other, showing a completely different kind of evil—the “Satanist next door”.
Minnie’s character and the portrayal of neighborhood Satanists are part of what makes this movie so terrifying. While I’ve spent much of this series on a PR campaign to redefine the understanding of the witch, I’ll excuse myself from going to bat for the Satanists. I could talk about the Church of Satan and Anton LaVey, and tell you how modern Satanists are vastly different from the Judeo-Christian Satanists that this movie depicts, but that’s for a different project and time. This movie remains an occult-cult-classic like Wicker Man (see Miss Rose #24), and like Wicker Man, manages to convey the fear of the other and fear of the occult in an unparalleled medium.
Aside from Minnie, a favorite aspect of mine about the movie is how it discusses the secret occult histories of a city like New York. The building that Rosemary and her (awful) husband moved into, the Bramford, was notorious for various murders, suicides, and Satanic rituals. While this history had been whitewashed by the time the Woodhouses move in, Rosemary discovers that one of the descendants of an alleged Satanist that had lived in her building is non other than her neighbor in disguise. He concealed his identity through creating an anagram of his name, Steven Marcato for Roman Castevet (Minnie’s husband), and in this way is the cultural and occult predecessor to Tom Marvolo Riddle becoming Lord Voldemort in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. While Paganism proper has existed for the countryfolk, many branches of the occult have always flourished in urban environments (witchcraft taking up some place in the middle….suburbia….) Rosemary’s Baby shows the urban home of the occult, and the ample opportunities cities provide for the concealment and/or reimagining of oneself.
Rosemary’s Baby has a lot going for it, more than I can fit into this post. From Rosemary’s husband’s dabbling in the occult to further his career (sacrificing his own wife and child along the way), to the unholy alliance between the patriarchal field of medicine with the subjugation of women, this movie illustrates dozens of subtle (and not so subtle) principles of the marginalization of women, the occult, and witches. As such, its not terribly surprising that another witch in the movie, the nosier neighbor Laura-Louise, was played by one of Hollywood’s earliest unabashed lesbians Patsy Kelly, furthering again the innate connection between witchcraft/occult and the queer identity. This all encompassing portrayal of the occult and witchcraft that this movie illustrates is best captured, for me at least, by the book Rosemary uses to deduce the hidden coven that is trying to steal her baby, “All of Them Witches”. This was the alternate title to my “One Hundred Witches” project, and shows the vast reach, differentiation, and spectrum of the figure of the witch. Every single one of these women—all of them—witches— from Joan of Arc (#78) to Minnie Castavet.
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