20 Horror Films Where Humans Are The Real Monsters

7. Rosemary's Baby (1968)

With Ira Levin’s original novel written in response to the author’s experiences living in a subdivided building with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosemary’s Baby is, on one hand, about a brush with Satan himself, and on the other, a cautionary tale about nightmare neighbours. And Roman Polanski’s film adaptation is one of the most iconic and best-regarded horrors precisely because it captures this metaphor so well.

Guy and Rosemary Woodhouse (John Cassavetes and Mia Farrow) rent an apartment in New York’s Bramford, a large Gothic building with an urban legend reputation for witchcraft and murder. Settling in, Rosemary befriends the couple’s immediate neighbours, Roman and Minnie Castevet (Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon), and finds herself never wanting for company. But the couple, and their social clique of friends and neighbours, take a too-close-for-comfort interest in Rosemary’s life and wellbeing, and after a strange, intoxicated night during which she becomes pregnant, they take over her whole life.

What happens next is Rosemary winds up giving birth to none other than Satan’s demonic offspring, ensnared and used as she has been by the local coven. Now, many of the building’s occupants and their friends are the worst of the worst, but the worst of the worst of the worst are, of course, the Castevets. This sweet, old couple have the darkest hearts, arranging Rosemary’s assault by the devil, drugging her, gaslighting her, and just about sending her insane, before stealing her baby.