In an Era of 'Go-Boo' Horror, Polanski's Baby Endures as An Unnerving Tale!

Rating: 9/10 (24 March 2015)

Rosemary's Baby is an ingeniously deliberated dramatic thriller that delivers the slow-burn, taut story of a young couple that has just moved into the upper class sector of New York. Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and husband Guy Woodhouse (John Cassavetes) land a spacious apartment in a building with an extensive history of ghoulish occurrences. No sooner have they been acquainted with their eccentric neighbors Roman (Sidney Blackmer) and Minnie Castevet (Ruth Gordon) than Rosemary gets pregnant and the couple sees an up-tick in their fortunes, both professionally and personally. Very soon, every old crone in the building starts intruding Rosemary's life, from steering her toward their chosen obstetrician to forcing down her throat a vitamin drink of their own concoction. Just a few bites of their chocolate mousse give her woozy nightmares and start a hellish tempest in her womb. She has strange dreams of participating in arcane rituals. Soon a horrifying sexual fever dream renders her incapacitated by fear and paranoia. She begins to suspect that her neighbors have nefarious goals and are planning to harm her baby and gets curious why her husband is allowing them to do so.
The apartment takes on an entire life of its own that hides its own pulse and underbelly but is completely free of exposure from the outside world. All the while once Rosemary catches on to her neighbors' ploy and decides to flee for her life, there's the sense of claustrophobia as she discovers everything she assumed she knew in her life has been a facade right from the word go. Rosemary's Baby is inundated with Polanski's trademark style and preoccupations. It draws viewers gradually into considering the possibility that the movie's series of strange coincidences and accumulating sense of dread are only subjective representations of Rosemary's unraveling mental state. And Polanski's ability to prime the audience into questioning Rosemary's suspicions gives it an unnerving quality. Polanski (who also wrote the screenplay) is more interested in creating a crawling sense of discomfort by making everything seem plausible. He expertly winds up the paranoia with spooky atmospherics and morbid humor.
Cassavetes is deliciously smarmy as struggling actor Guy who will do whatever it takes to become a famous. Gordon plays the garrulous, nosy menace Minnie in her inimitable style. But the real star here is 23-year-old Mia Farrow playing the mousy title character, who uses her timorous space-child vulnerability remarkably to underscore her terror and solitude.
Even after all these years, the movie is still a terrifying thriller that is held up by its incredible ensemble cast, and clever premise. In this era of go-boo and CGI suffused horror movies, Rosemary's Baby continues to be celebrated as a cautionary tale.