Not a review, just some random, rueful musings. Be sure to watch Rosemary’s Baby with Zoe Saldana, available on Hulu, before you bother reading this. Won’t make a lick of sense without it.

Basically, we’re looking at the really uncomfortable story of a black woman who is roofied and date-raped by a blue-eyed Satan with the help of her white husband, bullied by friend and foe alike, and ultimately becomes the lifelong slave to her white-devil baby. No? Were we watching the same movie? Here are some more thoughts…

• Having her drugged and semiconscious during her impregnation and amnesiac after says something entirely different in 2014 than it did in 1968. It turns it from dark seduction by a never-seen Satan into roofies and date-rape by a blue-eyed devil.
• We can’t say it often enough: why was this story, so quintessentially about New York eccentrics, moved to Paris? And why is Zoe Saldana completely surrounded by white Europeans, without a person of color in sight?
• Hey, here’s an idea: take a woman who’s pregnant, catastrophically lost weight and looks like hell…and give her Mia Farrow’s haircut from 1968! (or in this case, a bad wig). THAT’s the ticket!
• Did you know that Ira Levin’s original novel, Rosemary’s Baby was out of print for years until NBC revived this? Yeah, THAT’S how much people were clamoring for a remake.
• In Part II, “Rosemary” keeps complaining that her husband is being cold and remote. Followed by scenes of him being comforting, warm, and concerned. What are we missing here?
• The difficulty is “Rosemary” never does anything for herself. She does what her husband, her friends (real and Satanist), her doctors tell her. She runs to friends or cops are anyone other than herself for rescue. What, she can’t buy her own ticket out of town? Can’t go to a hotel by herself? As if she hasn’t the brains, the courage, or the presence of mind to take care of herself in the year 2014. How is this realistic, understandable, or sympathetic?
• With all the hallucinations and match-cuts, it’s hard to tell if Rosemary is victim of multiple partners, multiple rapes, or dementia. In any event, it’s creepy, and not in a good way.
• Good work, Roman, if that is you name. Best way to hide in plain sight when you’re a known serial killer? ANAGRAMS! (or, to put it another way, SNAG A RAM!)
• She does show some pluck in Part 2, fighting the Satanist Conspiracy, but she’s so hysterical and disjointed that even we don’t believe her.
• Note this revelation: Bad driving and jaywalking in Paris is the fault of SATANIST MAGIC. Little did we know! And what does that say about Boston, ehhh?
• We’ll admit this: the death-by-cooking scene in Part 2 was very well done. Urgh.
• Medical Alert #1: Let’s get clear: just because a healthy young woman has a miscarriage does not make her second pregnancy “at risk.” Almost 20% of all women’s first pregnancies end in miscarriage. That’s 1 in 5. Unless, of course, you’re birthing the Anti-Christ.
• What a puzzlement. Zoe Saldana and her sisters produce a movie about an intelligent and beautiful woman who’s supposed to be sympathetic, but is in fact bullied by her husband, by her strange neighbors, by her doctors.
• And now, for a cameo appearance by the cast of Paranormal Activity…security footage from the hospital! Thank you, Paris! Great to be here!
• It’s so true! Second opinions are SUCH a bad idea!
• Medical Alert #2: MRI’s are non-invasive, magnetic and not radioactive in origin, and pose no known threat to a fetus. They’re also not used in fetal imaging technology, so why it would be requested to begin with (by a non-Satanic OB, yet) is questionable.
• Given Rosemary’s prenatal diet of raw chicken guts, they should name the baby Sam. As in Sam Anella. GET IT?
• Maybe it’s just us, but the physical representation of Satan looks more like a Saturday Matinee Dracula than the eternal, immortal, all-powerful Prince of Lies.
• “’The Sins of the father shall not be visited on the son,’ Roman says. ‘Your Bible says so.” Actually the Bible says that…and the exact opposite. Twice. Exodus says no; Deteronomy says yes. Ezekial says no; Numbers says yes. YOU be the judge!
• Hey! Satan’s too busy to attend his own son’s christening? Bastard!
• Here’s the final big question: if the intent was to put her into a coma, fake a stillbirth, and take the baby from her…why not just imprison her from the beginning and then kill her, since they do that with such ease and impunity with everyone else? If the intent was to convert her into the Antichrist’s Mother Mary, why not begin that with the (imprisoned) Rosemary while she’s pregnant? And does any of this really matter of her baby’s going to steal her brain anyway?

Bottom of it all: Not very scary, not very engaging, a poor showcase for a wonderful actress (even though she and her sisters, inexplicably, exec-produced it). The real horror here is that Rosemary’s Baby is about a black woman being forced to have a white…thing’s…baby, and then having her child stolen from her or willingly allow herself to become a slave to her rapists for the rest of her life. Ew. And if  anybody thought moving it to Paris and populating the film with Europeans would keep anybody noticing that…no. It didn’t. It just made you want to take a shower after the final credits.