This Rosemary’s Baby art is chaotic evil

As Polygon’s resident physical media obsessive, I sift through press releases for hundreds of DVDs, Blu-rays, and 4K discs each year. Most marketing material is geared towards horror movies. They are the most popular home video and the ones that promoters find the most difficult to differentiate from each other.

Needless to say, I’m no longer surprised when I open the mail and find a picture of a decomposing skull full of maggots or a rushed Photoshop of 1970s film stars covered in pixelated blood. One box, though, stands out from the others. The box is astonished, shocked, confused and kind of impressed.

New box art is available for Rosemary’s BabyDefies easy adjectives such as good, evil, ugly or beautiful. At first blush, it’s a simple silhouette of Rosemary (played by Mia Farrow) pregnant with a child that (if you’re familiar with the movie) may or may not be the antichrist. Except, what’s that on her belly?

Paramount Image

Teeth!

Art uses an ambiguous-image technique. It is a type of visual illusion that allows a single image to be interpreted in different ways. It’s like the illusion of a rabbit and a duck. Or not the so kindly named “My Wife and My Mother-in-Law.”

You can appreciate the struggles of Blu-ray box artists when you see so many. The box cover artist is tasked to do the impossible: please hardcore fans while attracting newcomers and convey iconic imagery with surprising and respectful ways. Their job is a ball of contradictions, and unlike the poster artists responsible for Hollywood’s most iconic marketing, the box artist works on a fraction of the time and budget.

Which is why I can’t get over this magnificent, monstrous marvel. Explain to me what the hell’s going on!

• Why does it look like Mia Farrow’s due date belly is getting munched by an Adventure Time character?
• What made this woman’s silhouette fight the Android robot in a fight?
• Is it still an ambiguous picture if the artist has added a floating giant eyeball to his work?

In the end, I appreciate misguided masterpieces. Imagine you had to recreate the poster from Rosemary’s BabyThe iconic image of a movie The greatest of all Time. In my mind, I see the artist at their desk cracking his knuckles and choosing to mix Czechoslovakian films with Magic Eye.

It belongs in a Museum. Highlights magazine or a museum. Why not both?

Art appears as a cover that covers a plastic box with the original posters. To remove the sleeves is to be cowardly and choose the Past. Embrace the chaotic, terrifying Present, for it is hungry to feast on the belly of life and — I’m sorry, where am I? For a brief moment, I lost consciousness.