Horror Film Countdown Day 17 – Movies Anxious Parents Should Avoid

Welcome to our countdown to the most anxiety-inducing horror films for parents!  Today is day seventeen!

Each day, we are covering the films I both love and hate because they’re awesome and they give me panic attacks now that I’m a mom.

Happy Monday, all!  Hope the weekend treated you well and you are of to a great week.  All is well here as I continue to dive into the darkest corners of parenting horrors for my own catharsis and your enjoyment. Today’s film of choice is an oldie but a goodie and continues along the path of demonic ritual and a clueless mother who once again is only doing her best to keep herself, and her baby alive… but should she?

Disclaimer: Trigger warnings are a given when you talk about horror, but I’m going to say it anyway.  Many subjects covered by horror films are disturbing to parents in ways we can’t possibly understand and each is unique to the parent and his/her experiences. Tread carefully and know your limits.  If this begins to be too much, there’s no shame in closing the window.  Also, this post contains some spoilers throughout. 

15. Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

 From the first moments till the very end, this film is every bit a chilling work of art.  The music throughout delivers a theme both soothing and disturbing, an innocent kind of darkness within it’s minor chords casting a shadow on a baby’s lullaby.

The lead in to the sinister reality of the story takes a while as we get a solid development of characters.  We understand the young couple is fun loving and loves one another.  We understand they have moved into a gorgeous apartment in a building that has a tight community and neighbors who are generous and worldly. In fact, it’s a good 40+ minutes in before the creep show begins with a dream state due to drugged chocolate mousse followed by a night of demonic rape.  To explain it away, the husband passes it off as having gotten a bit out of hand with her while she was passed out. When she appears violated and disgusted, he shrugs it off and tells her not to take it like that, he was a “bit loaded” and couldn’t help himself.  He casually apologizes for having sex with her while she was incoherent then makes a joking comment about how it was “kind of fun in a necrophiliac sort of way”.  She nods and smiles shyly admitting it probably was no big deal.  (SERIOUSLY?!?!)

From there, we begin to question every innocent thing we’ve seen and suspect everyone who has so far been kind to her.  There was a random death of a young woman in the building, an actor inexplicably struck with blindness giving the leading lady’s husband the star role in a Broadway play, the neighbors gifting Rosemary with the same necklace worn by the woman who died, the suggestion against her own desires to change obstetricians, and the daily mystery supplement drink made for her every day.

As the pregnancy continues, she begins to lose weight, feels sick and uncomfortable.  At the same time, she feels more isolated, her husband seems distant and dismissive of her anxiety.  She seems to suspect something after a good friend takes ill and ends up in a coma.  When she throws a party with her younger friends and no one from her building allowed to attend, she breaks down because her pain is so terrible she can hardly stand it.  She makes the choice to go back to her original doctor and an argument with her husband ensues during which, the pain that has plagued her suddenly stops. (this is where we say, of COURSE it did)  With the release of the pain, she lets go of her anxiety and begins to trust the process and those closest to her once again.  We once again regain an air of levity and joy until she realizes something terrible is going on.

Eventually, she has the baby and all truth comes to light, but is being the mother of the son of Satan truly the point?  If not, what is this film about and why is it on my list?

Yes, there are some pregnancies that can feel like Hell, but do we really believe the reason is because our child is of the devil?  Of course not.  What creates the anxiety here is the reality of vulnerability.  Being pregnant puts even the strongest mother in an incredibly vulnerable position.  We often need the help of others to complete the process safely.  This film takes those anxieties of needing to rely upon others’ kindnesses and presents the reality that we can’t always trust others.  

Every single pregnant woman alive knows about the unsolicited advice of kindly friends and neighbors and I’m sure every one of us has given into that advice at times for fear of seeming ungrateful.  If we are too trusting, we give ourselves and our baby’s safety over to someone else and the anxiety that comes from this movie is watching her do just that – she willingly gives away her power and her right to understand what is going on inside her – over and over again.

I’ll be honest, it makes me more angry than anxious now that I’m a mother.  It’s a major pet peeve for me to see parents just doing whatever everyone else does because that’s “easy and so and so did it and if the doctor said it, well then, it must be the only truth possible”.  Ugh… makes me so angry!!

This film hit my list because it shines a light on an important aspect of modern parenting, pregnancy and birth, as well as the darker parts of our more acceptable, sexist history.  People want to get in your face about what you should be doing and sometimes… sometimes they don’t have your best interests at heart, but their own egos instead.  Sometimes they tell you to do certain things with your own body and babies because it makes them feel better about their bad choices.  They scoff at new research and try to tell you that if you are a SMART person, you’ll forget all that stuff and just do whatever they did, which is usually whatever was easiest, not always what is best.

It does give me anxiety to see this sweet mother taken for an idiot, barely more than a child in her mind to be led around by everyone else who clearly knows better, but she allows it from the beginning.  She is the personification of sexism, abuse and victim mentality and not only is it a bit scary, it’s a LOT frustrating.

The lesson here is always do your research and trust your gut.

The frightening reality in this film is not just the helplessness she feels and her isolation as she realizes what has happened to her during pregnancy.  It’s that she allowed it through her ignorance and overly trusting attitude and continued to display a passivity throughout the entire film.  Then, just when you think she is going to stand up for herself, the film ends with her quiet acceptance as she gazes lovingly at her demon child.  They even touch upon the dismissal of birth and babies in general by saying, “well, suppose you lost the baby in childbirth, wouldn’t it be just the same?” referring to the reality that her child is half demon and was stolen from her after being told he died.

This is a perfect representation of the reality of this period in our history and we are just barely coming out of it now into a new era where mothers and their intuition are respected, but not everywhere.  There are still places, even in this country, where women are treated as children, unable to think or act for themselves.  They are led, bred and die under the hand of someone who knows better, who tells them not to think or worry or care because it’s in someone else’s far more capable hands.

In this case, exchange hands for claws.  Because… y’know, The Devil.