Rosemary's Baby

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

The Plot: A young couple moves into a new apartment where they soon find out the kindly old neighbors are not at all what they seem.

  Rosemary's Baby is not a scary movie per se, as it avoids the usual jump scares, gore, etc. that is the trappings of most horror movies. Instead it ratchets up the creep factor and plays the unnerving tension up to 11.Because it avoids the usual gore and violence (especially since most of the action takes place in real, everyday places such as Doctor's offices and apartment living rooms), it makes the creepiness slow burn until it's reached a boiling point and you think this actually could happen in the real world. Of course, some of the creepiness comes from the coven ritual where all the septuagenarian witches are nude. What is it with covens and their naked rituals?!?!  Why can't they just wear normal, satanic robes like any self respecting coven would?!?! "Warning! Septuagenarian naked coven ahead!" is a spoiler alert I would have loved to have seen before watching this movie.

More movies should feature old men dressed as used car salesmen screaming "HAIL SATAN!"

 My favorite moment is the importance of Scrabble to the plot. Sadly, there have been too few moments in horror movies where a board game plays a key role. There was the Ouija board in 1986's Witchboard and also the infamous Frankenstein cut scene where the monster plays Monopoly with the little girl before getting angry at continuously going to jail without passing go and without collecting $200 dollars and tossing both board and girl in the lake. Luckily, that scene was rewritten to exclude Monopoly*.

Never play Satan at Scrabble.

  I would be remiss if I forget to point out the satanic bassinet. This is the type of coven that will go to the great lengths necessary to make the spawn of Satan feel as comfortable as possible. And if that means recruiting Rudy, the owner of Rudy's Baby Furniture into the coven so he can hand-make a Satanic Bassinet all in black with small crucifixes for the span of Satan to play with, then so be it! That's what needs to happen!

Satanic Bassinets: They're not just for Goths anymore

I give it 7 satanic bassinets

* may not actually be true