What is a horror film?

Rating: 10/10 (9 July 2004)

It's really ironic that "Rosemary's Baby" is so often cited as one of the greatest horror films ever made. Because, when you watch it, it doesn't really share much with what many consider horror films. There is not one menacing villain versus several main characters, of which those with faults succumb to grisly deaths, while those with virtues survive to the end. In fact, there is hardly any violence, or even scenes of immediate tension, such as those when a victim hides out in some dark area, isolated from the rest of humanity, with no weapon, while a violent, supernatural murderer haunts (usually her) the victim. The horror in this type of horror film is of course short-lived and short-lasting. Thus, a modern horror film generally comprises several such scenes where the tension is permitted to artificially rise and then is released when the violence occurs. I say "artificial" because the formula is so known to the audience that the audience members can practically predict where the tension will rise, though they may still experience it. The tension in modern horror is formulaic and often constructed out of absurd situations.
"Rosemary's Baby," Polanski's first American film, is different. It is the story of one, fragile individual who, at her most vulnerable (during her pregnancy), descends into psychological hell. The tension here is absolutely real, even though the premise is absurd. (The premise, by the way, is that Rosemary's husband agrees to let his wife be host to the son of Satan in exchange for a successful career). However, the realism of the general premise is absolutely unnecessary for the film to work, precisely because it is psychological.
"Rosemary's Baby" begins like a bad romance film. A couple buys an apartment, chats with the neighbors and talks of making a baby. Then, Rosemary, in a nightmarish vision gets impregnated and things start to go wrong. She has dreams though she feels they are real. Her neighbors persuade her to switch to another doctor, one who ignores her complaints about the pain she feels. She finds mysterious scratches on her arms. A friend who had something important to tell her ends up dead. She hears voices and slowly, but surely, the coincidences start to add up in her head. They form a *believable* reality - and the reason it is believable is because we follow Rosemary's logic and fears. We can't help but draw the same, terrifying conclusions.
Thus, "Rosemary's Baby" terrifies precisely because it makes an absurdly-horrific situation believable and genuinely upsetting. A lot of factors, of course, aside from the story make this work. No doubt, Polanski's expert direction helps visually and psychologically construct a claustrophobic, alienating and alien world. John Cassevetes is great as Rosemary's husband, Guy, who's masculine innocence carries dark undertones. And Mia Farrow, or Rosemary, is the perfect victim for this little scheme - innocent, naive, steadily growing more exhausted, more paranoid, Farrow plays Rosemary perfectly. And, without Rosemary's believable psychological reaction to the events unfolding around her, the film would lose half its strength.
In "Rosemary's Baby" Polanski explores some of the themes that would preoccupy him for the rest of his directorial career. The idea of alienation, de-humanization and schizophrenia (the ultimate psychological fracture and collapse) in the face of a gradual advent of evil is the central theme in the story. Rosemary's environment, for reasons unknown to her, becomes inimical and harmful and she is helpless in the face of it. And it happens so gradually and subtly, it's easy to forget that everything used to be peaceful in the beginning.
Upon a third viewing (I believe) Polanski's direction still appears expert. However, I realized that "Rosemary's Baby" is simply extremely well-made pulp. It's at the top of the pulpy scale and it almost approaches art, but not quite - "Chinatown," however, does. "Rosemary's Baby" is a film about paranoia and perhaps feminism, but it doesn't come close to the existential horror of "Chinatown."
And it isn't Polanski's most terrifying pulpy horror. I do put it above "Repulsion" of which I was never a fan, but "Rosemary's Baby" pales in comparison to a much darker, later film, "The Tenant." "The Tenant" stars Polanski himself and is a story not unlike the story of Rosemary. A man rents an apartment in Paris and things around him go very wrong - the apartment, Paris and humanity turn against him. He is a victim of circumstance, coincidence, much like Rosemary, but the ambiguity of "The Tenant" leaves far more terrifying implications. It leaves the viewer wondering whether the tenant is actually sane and whether what he witnesses is real or only a schizophrenic hallucination. "Rosemary's Baby" has similarly ambiguous elements, but I think the question of Rosemary's sanity isn't as central to the film as the change of her physical and psychological reality.
But in "The Tenant" you never really do know. Whether the tenant is sane. Whether you're sane and what sanity is anyway. It's all stripped to terrifying darkness, in which you can't see anything. And that darkness, losing one's mind, is far more terrifying, and realistic, than giving birth to Satan's child.