Eat Your Liver, Rosemary

Rating: 10/10 (31 January 2007)

Quite simply, one of the best horror movies ever made.
"Rosemary's Baby" is terrifying, and it remains terrifying every time I see it. I watch this, and then I watch what passes today for horror movies ("The Hills Have Eyes" remake is an example), and I simply shake my head in awe and dismay at how far the horror film has fallen.
Everything about this movie hits the right notes. The acting is expert, especially Mia Farrow's hugely underrated performance as the impressionable Rosemary. Roman Polanski's direction is perfect; he eschews the shock horror approach used by directors like William Friedkin and instead creates a subtly creepy atmosphere, ratcheting up the tension gradually until you're ready to jump out of your skin. The production design and cinematography are off-kilter in ways you can't quite define. And the musical score, all plucked strings and jangling piano chords (except for the sinister lullaby that opens the film), is nerve-wracking.
Because every element of the film comes together so well, this supernatural tale feels as realistic as it could possibly be, and one feels that if there is indeed such a thing as the coming of an Anti-Christ, it would happen something like this.
With John Cassavetes, superbly slimy as the sell-out husband; Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer, as the Jewish grandma and grandpa from Hell (literally); Ralph Bellamy as a crooked doctor; and, most effectively, Maurice Evans, poor Rosemary's only ally.
Any number of scenes could qualify as creepiest, but my personal favorite is the one in which Rosemary uses a Scrabble game set to make sense of an anagram. I get shivers just writing about it.
Grade: A+