Directed by: Roman Polanski
Premise: A young couple (Mia Farrow and John
Cassavetes) moves into a high class New York apartment and find themselves
surrounded by strange neighbors. After Rosemary mysteriously becomes pregnant
she begins to suspect a Satanic cult is at work in the building and intends to
sacrifice her child.
What Works: Rosemary’s Baby is very
different from a lot of other horror pictures from the New Hollywood era. The
film features Polanski’s style, and Rosemary’s Baby is much quieter
than other pictures like The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre or The
Hills Have Eyes. Polanski uses odd or distant framing of the subjects on
the screen, which keeps the audience’s interest up even when very little
action is presented in the film. The horror of Rosemary’s Baby is based
in the fear of impending motherhood; it is internal rather than an external
fear, and that works because of the wonderful performance by Mia Farrow. She
might be crazy or she might be right and Farrow’s performance walks that line
terrifically. The film keeps the audience on tenterhooks by not showing its hand
and letting the ambiguity work itself out, waxing and waning between one
explanation or the other. Like a lot of New Hollywood horror films, Rosemary’s
Baby plays on subverting or defeating audience expectations, which the film
does in a terrific reversal in its finale. As an early entry in the trend of
demonically themed films, which later became a major force in the culture and in
the movies, Rosemary’s Baby established a number of themes and ideas
that that were central such as a Satanic conspiracy, the impending arrival of
the Antichrist, and the evil of the everyday. In this way, Rosemary’s Baby was highly influential both on later films and on American culture.
What Doesn’t: A contemporary audience might
struggle with film’s pace, which is much slower than the movies they are
accustomed to. Some of the characters in the building are so offbeat that they
come off as comic now, almost like a darker version of characters in The
Devil Wears Prada or Sex
and the City.
DVD extras: Featurette, documentary.
Bottom Line: Rosemary’s Baby remains a smart thriller. Some of its style has aged but the performance by Mia Farrow still holds up and the underlying themes of the film are as strong now as they were in their initial release.