Roman Polanski's tale of modern Satan worshippers in New York City in Rosemary's Baby is generally considered one of the better horror films ever made, though the horror is all in the imagination and not from blood and gore. Most reviews of the film comment on the innocence factor of its initial setting or in the characterization of its title character, Rosemary, a woman who loves her new husband but as she experiences pregnancy with him must come to think the most sinister things about him. Time Grierson (2008) is one critic who refers to the innocence factor in the film in his one sentence summary of the film's plot: "An innocent woman whose career-conscious husband arranges to have her impregnated by Satan and is then forced to suffer at the hands of patronizing neighbors who secretly view her as little more than a baby incubator" (p. 1).
In the film, Rosemary makes the transition from innocent young woman to experience young adult who learns the horrifying knowledge that her husband is culpable in rendering the services of her womb to their Satan worshipping neighbors. In this manner, we see a Christian parallel in Polanski's interpretation of innocence and experience. A survivor of WWII Polanski knows firsthand the loss of innocence from gaining experience of an often horrifying world. Similarly, like Adam and Eve eating from the tree of knowledge, Rosemary's experience leads to such knowledge of a horrifying world of sin and betrayal. In this manner, Polanski shows the ultimate loss of innocence and recognition of sin as individuals gain the experience or knowledge of adulthood.
The transition from innocence to experience or from good to evil begins during the opening credits of Rosemary's Baby and does not end until the final horrifying recognition by Rosemary that her worst fears and suspicions are true. The opening sets up the difference between innocence and experience or knowledge. Onl...