Rosemary's Baby
Rating: 5/5
By: Nathaniel Simpson
The topic of demonic babies has been a staple of the horror genre for decades now. The anti-Christ has been haunting screens and terrorizing audiences in films like The Omen and its various sequels. However, the first time we saw this happen was in Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby, a sickening haunting tale about a woman who is carrying the child of the Devil. Even though this movie was terrifying audiences in 1968 when it first released, this movie still fantastically holds up to today, presenting an expertly-crafted and stylized film that will make the viewer stressed and sick to their stomach when the demonic elements start coming into play.
The movie, which is based off the novel of the same name by Ira Levin, is centered around Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) and her husband Guy (John Cassavetes) as they move in and adjust to their new apartment. As they start to grow more comfortable in their lives at the new place, they decide to get pregnant and start a family, with Rosemary being over-the-moon excited about finally becoming a mother. However, Guy starts to invite their neighbors, Minnie (Ruth Gordon) and Roman Castevet (Sidney Blackmer), into their lives, against Rosemary's wishes. Things start to take a turn for the worst as not only is Rosemary having constant complications with her unborn baby, but there are sinister happenings afoot that will affect her and Guy's lives forever.
Farrow is at the center of this entire film, being featured in nearly every scene. Therefore, the viewer follows with her through this terrifying journey of a Satanic cult, finding out information at the same time she does in the movie. This film practically works as a giant anxiety attack in a way, with our lead character and the audience both terrified about what is happening and not understanding what is going on until it is too late. Tasked with this massive responsibility to carry this film with a character who is simply terrified and misunderstood for a majority of the story, Farrow does an absolutely phenomenal job. She practically embodies this character and literally gives everything she has on the screen. At the same time, she has phenomenal acting chemistry with Cassavetes and Gordon, with her being able to alter the character's performance due to the feelings that Rosemary has about the respective characters she interacts with.
One thing I noticed about this movie early on is that it easily draws you into the story based on how Polanski directs this picture. Polanski has this unique style present here, with trippy imagery in the form of dream sequences and uncomfortable close-ups during tense moments in the movie. The dream sequences here do an excellent job of making the viewer feel incredibly uncomfortable and unsettled, presenting depictions of a demonic ritual and a sexual assault done at the hands of the Devil himself. There is no doubt Polanski pushed the envelope in the time that this picture was made, and these sequences still hold up quite well today. At the same time, he shoots this movie in such a way that makes the most normal and uninteresting aspects about life terrifyingly interesting. Every little thing that happens in this picture has meaning to it, and shows Polanski as a meticulous and careful filmmaker.
I think the reason this movie works so well is not only the macabre tone of this picture that causes an immeasurable amount of dread, but the sense of helplessness in the viewer as we can kind of figure what is going on but we can't do anything to help. After the Devil is present in Rosemary's dream sequence, we have a dreadful sense of what is going to occur throughout the movie, but we have to watch Farrow play this character that is terrified about what is happening to her and her baby. Even in the moments where she is happy and overjoyed about being pregnant and getting everything ready for the baby to arrive causes a major sense of dread and uncomfortableness in the viewer. Polanski makes it where even wholesome scenes like decorating a nursery is hauntingly upsetting.
Not only does Rosemary's Baby works so well in today's day and age, as I'm sure when the movie first released, but it inspired so many different stories and movies after Polanski's iconic movie hit theaters. Polanski had the nerve to showcase such a story and unsettling imagery during the late '60s that it put him on the map as a filmmaker. Rosemary's Baby is such an important film in cinematic history, and it will definitely hold up as one of the most important films in the history of horror.
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