Rosemary's Baby Ending, Explained

Summary Rosemary's Baby's ending confirms her worst fears, making it one of the greatest horror movies ever.

The movie's iconic ending challenges viewers with chilling imagery and interpretable moments.

Rosemary's decision to embrace motherhood to the Antichrist highlights themes of feminism and control.

Rosemary’s Baby's ending helps to solidify it as one of the greatest horror movies of all time and leaves things on a chilling final note. Based on the novel by Ira Levin, Rosemary's Baby stars Mia Farrow as aspiring mother Rosemary Woodhouse who moves into an old Renaissance Revival-style apartment building in New York City called the Bramford with her gaslighting husband, Guy (John Cassavetes). After becoming pregnant, Rosemary grows suspicious of her neighbors and believes they have malicious intentions for her unborn baby, causing her to fight to regain control as everyone tells her it's all in her head.

Up until the horror movie's iconic ending, Rosemary seems like she could just be imagining the spooky goings-on at the Bramford — her theories are so far-fetched that it would make sense to debunk them. It's more likely her imagination is running wild than the truth that her apartment complex is full of high-society Satanists. Then, her theories are confirmed in one of the most chilling endings in movie history. However, from the Satanic chant to the demonic eyes to the unsettling look of love that Rosemary gives her baby, a lot of the movie’s ending is open to interpretation.

Related Rosemary's Baby: 10 Chilling Behind The Scenes Facts About The 1968 Film Rosemary's Baby is full of behind the scenes info about its production and hidden details that only become apparent after multiple viewings.

What Happens In Rosemary’s Baby’s Ending

Rosemary Makes A Shocking Decision To Be A Mother To The Devil's Spawn

At the end of Rosemary’s Baby, the title character's paranoid suspicions are finally confirmed as she finds her neighbors’ coven worshiping her newborn baby under an upside-down cross, enthusiastically chanting, “Hail Satan!” When Rosemary is giving birth, she’s restrained and sedated by coven members. Later, she regains consciousness, and she’s told that her baby was stillborn. However, she finds that her breast milk has been saved, so once again, she becomes suspicious that she’s been lied to.

Convinced her baby is still alive, Rosemary finds a hidden passageway into her neighbor’s apartment — the same passageway the coven used to infiltrate the room when she tried to lock them out. Rosemary goes through this passageway and finds her son, Adrian, lying in a bassinet draped in black, surrounded by eager Satan worshipers — including Guy — gathered to celebrate his birth.

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When Rosemary takes a look inside the bassinet, she’s horrified by what she sees. Guy tells Rosemary that if she raises the child, she’ll be rewarded. She doesn’t have to become an official member of the Satan worshippers cult; she just has to be a loving mother to Adrian. She initially rejects the offer and spits in her husband’s face. However, when she hears the infant’s cries, her maternal instincts kick in, and she has a change of heart and decides to take in the child even knowing it is the antichrist.

Related The 8 Most Dangerous Satans And Antichrists In Media, Ranked The Devil and his child have been taking over media the last several years, with some showing these figures as dangers and others making them jokes.

What Did The Coven Want With Rosemary’s Baby?

Rosemary Was Unwittingly Chose To Birth The Antichrist

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The Satanist coven is so desperate to get their hands on Rosemary’s baby because he’s their malevolent deity, the Antichrist. The coven initially targeted recovering addict Terry Gionoffrio to carry the Antichrist, but after her death, at her own hands, they turned their sights to Rosemary.

Her nightmare about being attacked by a demonic presence was a real experience in which she was impregnated with the son of Satan. The birth of the Antichrist has global ramifications for the souls of humankind. In the Bible, the Antichrist is prophesied to oppose Jesus Christ and take his place prior to the Second Coming.

Related What Is Tannis Root? Rosemary's Baby's Ominous Ingredient Explained Tannis Root is used against Rosemary in the disturbing horror movie Rosemary's Baby, but is the substance real and how does it work on the heroine?

What’s Wrong With Rosemary’s Baby’s Eyes?

The Newborn Baby Has The Devil's Eyes

Rosemary asks the coven, “What have you done to his eyes?” and cult leader Roman Castevet (Sidney Blackmer) gleefully answers, “He has his father’s eyes.” The father isn’t Guy; it’s the Devil. Adrian has the same terrifying beady eyes seen in Biblical descriptions of Satan. The audience doesn’t see the baby, but Rosemary’s terror at the sight of his demonic eyes suggests the child is an inhuman monstrosity.

What viewers see in their minds when a frightened Rosemary peeks into the crib is undoubtedly much more horrifying than anything the filmmakers could show.

In the movie's unsettling ending, the look of the Antichrist is left to the audience’s imagination. What viewers see in their minds when a frightened Rosemary peeks into the crib is undoubtedly much more horrifying than anything the filmmakers could show.

Related Recasting Rosemary's Baby If It Was Made Today If the 1960s horror classic Rosemary's Baby was made today, it could've starred Jennifer Lawrence in Mia Farrow's place.

Rosemary Embraces Motherhood

Rosemary's Greatest Desire Comes True With A Dark Twist

When Rosemary hears her baby crying, she decides to embrace her long-sought-after role as a mother in spite of the Satanic nature of her child. All Rosemary ever wanted was to be a mother, and Adrian’s birth allows her that. She’s been tricked and manipulated into serving the Prince of Darkness and paving the way for his invasion of Earth, but she’s finally gotten what she wants. Rosemary is so desperate to be a mother and care for a baby that she’ll even raise the Antichrist with all the love and nurture she’d show to any child.

Related Rosemary’s Baby 2 Exists! What Happens In The Sequel Everyone knows the 1968 horror classic Rosemary's Baby, but few are acquainted with its obscure 1976 sequel Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby.

The Real Meaning Of Rosemary’s Baby’s Ending

Rosemary's Journey Is About Taking Power

Although its story deals heavily with themes of religion and the occult, Rosemary’s Baby is primarily about the uphill battle of feminism. Rosemary wants to take charge of her own life, but her husband and her doctor won’t let her make any decisions for herself. When she gets a haircut to reclaim some of the independence she feels slipping away, Guy says it “looks awful.”

When she gives in to the coven and raises the Antichrist as her own son, it’s certainly a dark and disturbing decision – but at least it’s one she makes for herself.

When she loses trust in her doctor, Guy won’t let her see another one. When she wakes up with scratches on her body, Guy casually insinuates that he assaulted her in her sleep — and that’s to cover up an even darker truth. Released at the beginning of the women’s liberation movement, five years before Roe v. Wade, Rosemary’s Baby’s plot is an extreme metaphor for the control of women’s bodies and the struggle for women to forge their own identity in an oppressive patriarchal society. It is part of what makes it one of the most influential horror movies of all time.

All of Rosemary’s decisions are made by men, including her husband. Like many women of her era, Rosemary wants to make her own decisions and is frustrated by her inability to do so. When she gives in to the coven and raises the Antichrist as her own son, it’s certainly a dark and disturbing decision – but at least it’s one she makes for herself.

Related Why Hereditary Is A Millennial Twist On Rosemary’s Baby 1968's Rosemary's Baby is a classic piece of creeping horror while 2018's Hereditary follows in its footsteps, adding a modern twist in its angle

How Rosemary's Baby's Ending Stands Up Next To Other Great Horror Endings

Rosemary's Baby Fits In With The Trend Of Horror Movies With Bleak Finales

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Rosemary's Baby was a massive hit when it was released in 1968 and helped to usher in a new era of mainstream horror movies. A lot of its reputation stems from the powerful final scene, which is still regarded as one of the greatest endings in the genre. The conclusion of the story ties everything together and brings the themes of the movie to a head, while also being terrifying and leaving the audience with a grim final thought as the credits begin to roll. It is a bleak final moment that has influenced many other horror movies that followed.

Rosemary's Baby and The Omen are often seen as similar horror movies as they both deal with the suggestion of a child being the spawn of the devil. The Omen was released after Rosemary's Baby and delivers a similarly chilling ending. It concludes with Gregory Peck's diplomatic protagonist accepting that his son Damien is the antichrist and attempting to kill him, only for Peck to be killed by police. The final scene shows that Damien has been adopted by Peck's friend, the President of the United States. Like Rosemary's Baby, the final moments suggest chilling consequences.

Other modern horror movies have also delivered some of the most impactful endings while feeling similar to Rosemary's Baby.

Other modern horror movies have also delivered some of the most impactful endings while feeling similar to Rosemary's Baby. Midsommar is another movie featuring a deadly cult at it's center while also having themes of toxic relationships and a woman gaining power. In the end, Dani (Florence Pugh) is crowned the queen of the midsummer festival as she learns that her boyfriend cheated on her and the cult has killed all the other visitors. The final moments of Midsommar see Dani watching as they burn her boyfriend alive, gradually smiling and, similar to Rosemary, accepting this new reality.

Rosemary's Baby's ending stands alongside so many other great horror movie endings that show how effective it can be to end the movie on a dark and disturbing idea. While there are horror movies that feel more triumphant and optimistic in their final moments, other classics like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Wicker Man, The Blair Witch Project, and even grounded horror movies like The Vanishing stick in the minds of audiences with the notion that evil wins.