Summary

• "Rosemary's Baby" remains one of the scariest horror films ever made, with a creepy mix of paranoia, dark imagery, and claustrophobia.
• Behind-the-scenes, the cast and crew faced terrifying events, from real traffic dangers to unsettling cursed occurrences during filming.
• The film is rife with hidden details, like numbers spelling out "Hell" and eerie connections to tragic real-life events, creating a deeply unsettling experience.

Rosemary's Baby is still highly regarded as one of the scariest horror films ever made and the Rosemary's Baby behind-the-scenes events are surprisingly almost as terrifying. Directed by Roman Polanski, Mia Farrow stars as a woman who ends up pregnant. However, she starts to believe there is something wrong with her baby and that she might be carrying the Antichrist. She also has neighbors who seem helpful, but they all have sinister undertones that become terrifying as the movie wears on.

The horror movie is a mixture of unsettling paranoia, dark imagery, and social claustrophobia, helping sell it as a frightening thriller. Decades later, Rosemary's Baby is a creepy film to watch, and it was just as terrifying when it was released in 1968. Like many classic horror films of the period that were way ahead of their time, Rosemary's Baby has a few creepy facts attached to it. While the project has many scary moments, several behind-the-scenes moments would never fly in today's movie-making world.

10 Mia Farrow Really Walked Into Oncoming Traffic

Roman Polanski Believed No One Would Hit A Pregnant Woman

There are more laws and regulations today to protect actors while making movies, and moments that would put their lives in danger don't happen as much anymore. However, when Roman Polanski made Rosemary's Baby, he sent Mia Farrow straight into real oncoming New York traffic to capture a scene of her distracted character wading needlessly into a potential disaster.

According to Mia Farrow in her autobiography What Falls Away, she said Polanski told her that "nobody will hit a pregnant woman," which was a reference to her character's in-story pregnancy. The screeching of tires and honking horns are all genuine reactions from drivers as Farrow walked into traffic. Farrow also said that no one else working on the crew would dare walk into traffic, so Polanski had to serve as the cameraman for this specific scene, walking behind her with a handheld camera.

9 The Baby's Birthdate Offers An Easter Egg

It Is The Sign Of The Beast

One piece of information in the script ended up as an ominous marker regarding the expected delivery date of Rosemary's baby. According to both Ira Levin's novel and Roman Polanski's script, the child's due date was sometime in June 1966. This is the sixth month with the last two numbers of the year being "66." Of course, the number 666 is considered the sign of the Devil, which comes from the Book of Revelation 13:18 in the Bible:

"This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666."

While a small detail, it's one of those creepy facts similar to those in The Shining that heightens the tension for anyone watching the film. It's especially disconcerting given that Polanski wanted to leave the supernatural element up in the air for audiences to decide what was real and what was not. However, added into the script and movie as an Easter egg offers fans familiar with the Biblical elements of the Antichrist something fun to latch onto when theorizing the film's ending.

8 Some Of The Crew Believed The Film Was Cursed

The Cast & Crew Faced A Terrifying Future

Although Satanic Panic didn't strike the American consciousness until the 1980s, the horror movie seeds were planted as far back as the 1960s with Rosemary's Baby. According to producer William Castle, who played a bit part in the film, the film was "cursed." He cited his personal health afflictions as evidence. Castle was hospitalized after receiving constant hate mail about the movie. In a delirious state in the hospital, he yelled out, "Rosemary, for God’s sake, drop the knife" (via Vanity Fair).

Other things happened that seemed to lead to people calling Rosemary's Baby cursed. Krzysztof Komeda composed the score for the movie and after Rosemary's Baby's release, he fell off a rocky escarpment and ended up in a four-month coma, the same thing that killed Rosemary's friend in the book, though he died the following year. Of course, there is also the horrifying tale of the Sharon Tate murders, as she was pregnant with Polanski's child before the Manson Family murdered her.

7 Mia Farrow Told The Role In The Midst Of Marital Problems To Try & Win An Oscar

She Got Divorced But Didn't Receive An Oscar Nomination

Although Mia Farrow's performance is routinely lauded as one of her best, fate didn't seem to agree with her. She took the role despite opposition from her then-husband Frank Sinatra, also an accomplished actor, during a turbulent time in their marriage. Farrow almost passed on the role before she was told the performance could win her an Oscar. During filming, Sinatra filed for divorce, actually serving her the papers while she was filming on the set (via Best Life).

Farrow soldiered on and kept making the movie, but she ended up being snubbed at the Oscars. Katherine Hepburn (The Lion in Winter) and Barbara Streisand (Funny Girl) tied that year for Best Actress. Speculation has arisen that this was godly punishment for Farrow taking such a controversial role shortly after considering becoming a full-time nun, adding to the idea the movie was cursed. Ruth Gordon won Best Supporting Actress for her role as Minnie, so it wasn't like the movie was snubbed entirely.

6 The Use Of The Dakota Led To More Curse Speculation

John Lennon Was Murdered Outside Of The Dakota

Rosemary's Baby starts with a pan shot that ends on the Dakota, a building with a rather rich and ominous history in New York City. It was the city's first true luxury apartment complex when it was built in 1884 based on a design from Henry J. Herdenbergh, who created the Plaza Hotel. Over the years, it has attracted a plethora of wealthy celebrities, from Boris Karloff and Lauren Bacall to accomplished screen legend, Judy Garland.

Beatles' fans to speculate that Lennon's death ended up as part of the Rosemary's Baby curse

However, it gained notoriety for the death of John Lennon, who was murdered right outside the building. In Rosemary's Baby, Terry's death takes place eerily close to where Lennon was killed in 1980. This has caused many Beatles' fans to speculate that Lennon's death ended up as part of the Rosemary's Baby curse (via Beatles Bible). It is just one of many tragedies in history that have taken place around the Rosemary's Baby behind-the-scenes moments that built up the curse.

5 The Rotary Phone Scene Spells Out A Word

4377 Turned Upside Down Is HELL

The iconic phone booth scene shows Rosemary calling Dr. Hill on the rotary phone while mouthing a series of numbers. When carefully watching Rosemary in this scene, the numbers she mouths are "four, three, seven, seven," meaningless numbers at first sight. However, when the numbers are turned upside down, they spell out a word - "Hell." The number "4" turned upside down is a lowercase "h." A "3" becomes an uppercase "E" and the "7's" become upper case "L's."

This is another Easter egg that leads fans down the road of discovering that the horrors Rosemary faces are real. Polanski has always said that he wants people to make their own decisions, but this moment, added to the baby's birth month, shows the director knows what he wants people to believe. The idea that Rosemary is pregnant with the Antichrist, and a demonic cult set up the entire event, is evident the more that people study scenes like this and pick out the moments that show what the filmmaker was saying in this scary horror masterpiece.

4 Mia Farrow Actually Ate Raw Chicken Livers

Mia Farrow Was A Vegetarian At The Time

Mia Farrow was a vegetarian during the Rosemary's Baby filming, but she ate some raw chicken livers for the scene following the party during a few takes. Fans have speculated why she chose to eat the meat in the first place before obviously convulsing and throwing it back up. The original novel clarifies that the meat in question was not actually liver, but a chicken's heart. According to the novel, witch hunters often regarded chickens and hens as holy symbols, which is why Rosemary chose to eat the meat.

However, the presence of the demonic child inside of her prevented her from holding it down. As for the reason why Farrow would do so in real life, she admitted in her biography, What Falls Away: A Memoir, that "When Roman wanted me to eat raw liver, I ate it, take after take, even though, at the time, I was a committed vegetarian." As with the rest of the dangerous Rosemary's Baby behind-the-scenes moments, Farrow did what her director asked, no matter how dangerous or against her own beliefs it was.

3 Rosemary Had Ulterior Motives

The Novel Reveals What She Was Thinking At The End

While the film ends with Rosemary rocking her child's cradle in what seems to be a gesture of acceptance of the situation, the novel is far more explicit as to her character's intentions. Her seeming act of compliance is a smokescreen to buy time and give herself options. While the movie just shows her coming to terms with her role as the Antichrist's mother, in the novel, her inner thoughts reveal she contemplated killing the baby, Andy, and then dying by suicide to end her torment, similar to Terry at the story's start.

However, in the novel, Rosemary hopes that her inherent goodness will influence her child to turn away from his demonic ways. If this were to fail, her backup plan would involve notifying the Vatican of what has transpired, so that they could step in and take further action. Nothing of this sort is said or happens in the movie, and it is left up to the viewers to decide what Rosemary plans to do next as she looks over her baby in the cradle and realizes what she has just brought into the world.

2 The Reasons For Terry's Death

This Is What Could Have Happened To Rosemary

No real reason is given for the apparent suicide of Terry near the beginning of the film, but fans have long theorized that it had something to do with the Castevets and their plans. In their eyes, Terry might have been a possible mother for Satan's child, which is why they took her in. Her death might suggest that she found out about the plot and refused to go along with it, which necessitated her murder. This could have had something to do with the Coven drugging Rosemary before she was impregnated, as no human woman would dare do it willingly.

Rosemary could have ended up dead, just like Terry, if she stood up for herself.

The moment plays out as a terrifying incident as the movie starts, and it allows the story to then move on to Rosemary and her eventual pregnancy. However, when looking at the possible motives for Terry's tragic death, it opens the door to let people see what could have happened to Rosemary if she refused to go along with the entire pregnancy or tried to cause more problems than she did along the way. Rosemary could have ended up dead, just like Terry, if she stood up for herself.

1 The Sandwich Scene Slyly Sets Things Up

The Cult Planned Out The Pregnancy In Great Detail

Rosemary's Baby is peppered with a bevy of fine details that are impossible to grasp on the first viewing - a signature trait of some of the best Hollywood movies. Many fans remark that they notice these details only after repeated viewings when they have a chance to soak in each scene and identify things that had been missed the first time around. A perfect example is in the scene where Guy comes home early and pretends to be surprised by Hutch visiting Rosemary.

This allows Guy to take Hutch's glove and deliver it to the Castevets so they can use black magic on him. A doorbell rings moments after Guy leaves the apartment, which is him delivering the glove. The idea that the cult had planned this out so meticulously comes at the end when Louise brags, "Satan picked you! From the many he has had, he picked you." However, scenes like this show that it was indeed the cult that chose Rosemary, and they went to great lengths to ensure they achieved their goal.