David Jeffers for SIFFblog.com

Rating: 7/10 (31 October 2006)

Tuesday October 31, 7:30pm, The Historic Lynwood Theater
"Monsters, monsters, unspeakable, unspeakable!"
Guy and Rosemary Woodhouse are average, happy newlyweds, until they move into an imposing, fortress-like apartment on Manhattan's upper West Side. Everyone else at The Bramford (Manhattan's notorious Dakota) seems oddly out of step with the world, older, a bit too friendly, and not quite what they seem. Roman Polanski's first American production, Rosemary's Baby (1968) is the story of a young woman (Mia Farrow) who has either become the innocent victim of a depraved Satanist cult, impregnated by the Devil himself, or has lost her mind to the hormonal ravages of pregnancy. Polanski's great delight in presenting stories from the point of view of the central character leaves the viewer wondering to the very last ambiguous shot. What remains indisputable however, is this films place as the finest, most original and frightening example of psychotic-nightmare horror to come out of new Hollywood and the inspiration for countless other films.