The greatest horror film of all time!

Rating: 10/10 (9 February 2009)

by naturalACTOR- The only newer horror film (say, 90's to present) that ever even slightly scared me, surprisingly, was "The Blair Witch Project". Notably, "The Sixth Sense" had one quite terrifying scene, but contained nothing else that was truly "scary". It's so hard to find an amazing horror title today that I've almost given up trying. Rosemary's Baby (1968) is not only a film that (no joke here) cannot be watched alone, but is the scariest, most horrifying film of all time.
It's difficult to break it all down, because there is so much that contributes to the sheer fear this movie gives off. Firstly, Roman Polanski directs with some magic here, conjuring a well-written script into a haunting visual masterpiece. It is creepy how this film is so real, how the idea within its story doesn't seem very fictional. Mia Farrow plays Rosemary with frightening, twisted emotion. Her character even seems a little eerie at times when she begins to go too far with her accusations, and speaks as if somebody tortured her. John Cassavetes is unpredictable, and his character unreadable. He gives a solid performance, and Ruth Gordon, in her Oscar-winning portrayal of Minnie Castevet, brings the only light to this film, brewing a mix of nosiness and hilarity to her character.
I've found that films about Satanists are the very scariest, including this one and Dario Argento's "Suspiria" (1977). The film is shot smartly, and in a way that keeps the mystery, fear, and suspense tingling right to the very end. Again, Polanski is very masterful and careful about how he works this film, and how he directs his actors. If I had to pick the main reasons why this movie is so scary, and why it makes my hairs stick up so tall, it would have to be the camera work and directing, the story and script and how brilliantly it's played out, the simple feel and atmosphere, so unpredictable and creepy, the acting, done with malice and originality that I am still afraid to think about, and finally, the music.
Krzysztof Komeda composes the most haunting, and definitive horror film score, a lullaby that produces goosebumps and that gets the mind racing through tunnels of fear, through darkness, acting as almost a prelude to what is to happen in the film. It would even be plausible to say that the wild, satanic flute music, and mainly the original score, account for almost all of the film's alarming mountain of horror.
Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby is a unique horror film, one that is immensely scary, and also very well made. Never again will there be a better film of its kind. Polanski creates an air of dooming, prevalent fear and musically and plot-driven terror, but the greatest thing he achieves is the surpassing of Hitchcock's greatest works, in the same style--playing his own game, and coming out on top.