Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby

With its few touches of surrealism, LWHTRB works as low-grade horror, but as a major follow-up statement to the original, it flounders miserably.

Things begin somewhat promising during the telefilm's opening credits... We see and hear several interesting shots and sounds: The Baby's black crib with the overhanging, inverted cross; the kitchen knife Rosemary carried into the Castevette's apartment and dropped in shock (the utensil is shown sticking out of the hardwood floor); and the emptiness of the Bramford itself, without tenants or furniture (voice-overs can be heard here from the previous film's dialog). Interesting too is the Easter Egg hunt the titular child participates in (the eggs and baskets are also black). Once the story gets rolling, it never really 'rolls'... And what happens to Rosemary when she boards that driverless bus, and is whisked away to God-knows-where?

Patty Duke (a poor replacement for Mia Farrow), Ray Milland and Tina Louise (as the Southwestern Whore who raises the child, "Adrian/Andrew") head this almost-star cast, with Ruth Gordon reprising her "Minnie" role.

Although not a total failure, this sequel-of-sorts should have been released in book form first, then maybe we all could have been a bit better informed... and not left totally in the dark. A fairly recent sequel novel "Son of Rosemary" (1999?) is the legitimate followup by Ira Levin himself.

This belated sequel to the original hit film has been widely condemned by reviewers and fans of the original since it was first released back in 1976. I think they're being a little unfair, because this is certainly acceptable viewing and it works well in places as an atmospheric and subtle little thriller. It probably would have worked better had it not been a sequel to ROSEMARY'S BABY, a film it feels nothing like despite the return of Ruth Gordon in her skin-crawling role.

The film pulls the trick of swapping Patty Duke for a missing Mia Farrow, although it's a switch that you never really buy. The emphasis now is on the baby as a young man, with most of the running time occupied by Adrian feeling conflicted over the good and evil within him and struggling to battle the forces of evil, led by an enjoyably polite and genteel Ray Milland. Adrian is played by Stephen McHattie, who I know as an actor from the likes of 300 and A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (he was one of the coffee shop robbers in the latter) but didn't realise was acting as far back as the 1970s.

LOOK WHAT'S HAPPENED TO ROSEMARY'S BABY is episodic in places and the early sequences feel rather disjointed, although it all plays out better from the mid section onward. The ending is more than a little predictable. Overall, this feels more like an OMEN film than a sequel to ROSEMARY'S BABY, and there's no doubt that the success of THE OMEN saw it hastily written and released. As black magic thrillers from the 1970s go, though, it's a very middling genre instalment.

You might want to see this tepid movie of the week out of morbid curiosity, but please, don't go out of your way. First off, Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby didn't need a sequel--the haunting, ambiguous ending is supremely creepy and leaves you with something to think about. And if it did need a sequel, it certainly didn't need one as poor as this. Note the numerous inconsistencies with the original: If Adrian/Andrew was born in 1966, why is he in his twenties by 1976? Why is the Manhattan apartment building now sitting on a huge lawn? Minnie and Roman are present, but where are the other members of the original coven? And why have they now decided to refer to the coven as "the tribe"?

And of course, a talented cast is entirely wasted. Ruth Gordon, who won an Oscar as Minnie in the original, is reduced to a braying cartoon character. A semi-recreation of the Satainic rape scene is really lame. This may have been made to cash in on The Omen, as it bears more resemblance to that film than it does to Rosemary's Baby. If you want to see better execution of a similar theme, see The Devil's Daughter (1972). Cult film reviewer Michael Weldon summed up this disaster with the sarcastic question, "How about a TV sequel to Repulsion, too?" Indeed.

I usually seek to find good in movies, even the bad ones.Unfortunately this movie is one where I fail miserably-and the fact that there's barely one positive review on this board shows many IMDb reviewers share my pain.

I don't usually watch sequels but I just had to see this since I love "Rosemary's Baby" so much. What a mistake that was. It simply reaffirms my belief in the fact that most sequels are lousy-though thankfully, very few are as bad as this. In fact in my mind this isn't even really a sequel, it's a satire on how bad a sequel can be. Movie recommended very highly for not viewing-at any time-ever.

I'm a big fan of "Rosemary's Baby", so when I found out there was a sequel, I was ecstatic... until I actually saw it. I have heard people who read Ira Levin's sequel "Son of Rosemary" say that Levin could not have possibly come up with a worse follow-up story to his original; these people have obviously not seen this film. The fact that the movie refers to the coven as "the tribe" is all-telling. (A "tribe" of witches? Please!) The "tribe" eventually abandons Adrian as their Antichrist in favor of Adrian's son. (Why would the grandson of Satan make a better Antichrist than the son of Satan?) Even Ruth Gordon, whose brilliant performance in "Rosemary's Baby" won her an Oscar, is too old and senile in this film to be interesting. Put this on your must-skip list.