‘Jesus christ…’ – That was my lasting impression from sitting through ‘Baby Rosemary’ a film that…genuinely is probably one of the more unique and deeply unsettling adult films to come out of the 70s…and THAT’S saying something.

The plot? follows a young woman called Rosemary, her mother died when she was young, her father couldnt raise her as a single parent AND he seemingly had a lot of involvement with adult photography surrounding himself with very shady characters, and so handed her over to an orphanage.

We pick up with the film with a grown up Rosemary, going steady. But theres a problem, she’s absolutely revolted by the concept of sex. She can just about handle making out, maybe even touching. But anything involving penetration deeply unsettles her. much to the frustration of her partner who, after one final attempt to make it happen (given the pair are going to be apart for a couple of years after the current date they’re on) decides to leave to go have ‘fun’ elsewhere.

Rosemary is a little neurotic about it, promising that ‘she’ll raise her girls right when she has them’ to stop them from having impure thoughts or wanting anything to do with sex.

Anyway, the next evening Rosemary goes to visit her father for something, only to find he’s out. While writing him a note to say she dropped in, two of her fathers ‘clients’ appear in the doorway, and, at knifepoint, rape her.

Stunned, shes stumbles from the apartment complex, and when we next pick up with everyone, a couple of years have past and her former boyfriend, has now become a police officer, and is here to break the news to Rosemary that her fathers sadly passed away. At this point Rosemary also introduces us to ‘her girls’ two young women who are part of a ritualistic sex cult, that Rosemary is trying to be an influence on.

She goes with her ex to fill in the paperwork relating to her fathers passing and stops off at the apartment complex only to discover the 2 people who raped her two years ago, are having sex in the room opposite her dads old room. She watches them, before realising that shes only aroused by the idea of being sexually assualted. This then leads Rosemary down a rather dark path of trying to find ‘fullfillment’ leading to one of the most surreal and unsettling closing 10 minutes to an adult film that i’ve ever seen.

And, honestly, im having a bit of difficulty really figuring out my feelings on this one, as a work of ‘Adult’ cinema, to me? its a failure, the sex scenes arnt engaging, come in either two styles, ultra messy, shakey handheld footage, shot flat, with floodlit lighting (the least sexy lighting) or a tripod wide shot…Thats it. it looks incredibly clinical in places and the dialogue during the sequences themselves are incredibly cringey and unpleasent. This isnt shot like ‘Erotica’, its shot like someones reinacting a crime scene.

The plot itself, I assume is catering to a ‘specialist’ audience, it wasnt really for me. But in the last 10 minutes the film changes pace turning into what I can only describe as a ‘Blue Velvet’ level nightmare gang rape sequence. complete with ultra loud electronic scoring, Bizarre use of smoke machines and slow motion footage and a deeply unsettling scenario filled with unpleasent and upsetting characters engaging in horrible acts.

Its an incredibly powerful energy that genuinely unsettled me, and had the film carried that kind of power through the whole runtime, rather than soft loading it 20 minutes off the end, then running fully with it 10 minutes off the end. I probably would have been much more favourable to its dark and twisted-ness.

As it stands, instead? it just comes across as inconsistent, with the opening 40 minutes or so being fairly standard SA porn with a threadbear and unusually textured plot to hold it together, before we take a deep dive into a living nightmare. It literally feels like 2 movies have been stitched together.

Same applied to the direction and cine, with the bulk of the film feeling ugly, murky, sickly and floodlit, rough around the edges and it seems uncertain as to whether it wants our audience to reject the rape scene, or be aroused by it. I STILL dont quite know what the director wanted me to feel with the way this was framed and shot. But its unmistakable he wanted fear and shame to be the subject of the last 10 minutes.

Composition is all over the place, the edits super loose and im not sure if its my DVD copy or an error on the print scanned for the DVD, but 15 minutes of the film loops near the start as well…Which added to the dream like vibe of the production, but didnt help its case

Sharon Thorpe plays Rosemary here and its really hard to get a grip on the performance she’s trying to play, at first I thought she may be playing it autism coded and that the film was an experimental piece trying to display a world as percieved by an autistic person (for example, theres a scene where the casual phrase ‘Im gonna kill you for this!’ is said, but because its in the hazy nightmare sequence the guy saying it brandishes a knife at her. I thought they were being surreal) But then I realised this film ISNT multi layered by ANY stretch. and that they were actually probably just trying to depict someone fairly neurotic and isolated being forced into situations against their will…Which again, REALLY didnt help this films case.

Im still not sure how I feel about this film, whether im revolted by its tone and subject, upset at how rudamentary it all feels, or genuinely impressed at the BALLS of this film to go absurdist nightmare…given its poster and given what paying customers would be expecting from a film called ‘Baby Rosemary’. One thing I do know, it was crudely shot, looked ill and ran for about 40 minutes too long…and in my view, whichever way you cut it, that aint good. Worth watching at least once as an unsettling oddity. But otherwise, nah.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/baby-rosemary/