Prepartum Crazies or Good Old Devil Worship?

Rating: 10/10 (31 July 2005)

Roman Polanski's adaptation of Ira Levin's novel follows very closely to the book (About 95%, I think)and he does a wonderful job in doing so.
Rosemary (Mia Farrow)and Guy (John Cassavetes)are a young married couple. Guy is a struggling actor, always looking for a good break, but Rosemary is supportive. An apartment opens up at the Bramford (Or known as The Bram) and they decide to take it, even though their friend Hutch (Maurice Evans)tries to talk them out of it. Seems that The Bram has a rather black history in which strange occurrences happened, including a man named Adrian Marcato, who claimed to have conjured up Satan. Of course, being young people, they tend to ignore his advice.
Soon, Rosemary meets her neighbors, The Castevets. Minnie (Ruth Gordon)is incredibly nosy and Roman (Sidney Blackmer)is warm and caring. Guy soon takes a liking to them. Rosemary however finds them to be a bit smothering, especially since a young girl that stayed with them leaped to her death. Then, Guy gets the break that he wants when the actor that beat him for a starring role goes blind. He then tells Rosemary that they should have a baby. Rosemary loves this idea, considering that she always wanted a child.
On "baby night," Rosemary passes out after having dinner (With dessert by Minnie). She then has a nightmarish dream in which her neighbors are chanting and she is being raped by the devil.
From this point on, Rosemary's Baby takes an interesting turn.
Soon after finding out she is pregnant, The Castevet's recommend Dr. Saperstein (Ralph Bellamy). Later, she starts having pains that increase and she is eating raw meat. Her friend Hutch falls into a mysterious coma after looking into info about her helpful neighbors, and Guy seems to not look at her.
She also begins to suspect that her smothering neighbors are a little too interested in her baby. And soon she finds out that her neighbors are witches. Are her fears genuine, or are they caused by what Guy calls "Prepartum Crazies?" All of the performances are stellar, especially Gordon (Who won an Oscar). I guess my only beef with the film involves actually seeing Rosemary's Baby (If you've read the book, then you get a really nice description), but maybe some things are best left to the viewer's vivid imagination.