Rosemary's baby

Rating: 10/10 (31 July 2013)

While Rosemary's Baby is often dubbed a horror film, the contemporary viewer may find that generic attribution confusing. Due to its slow pace and reliance on less-traditional formal tools to create suspense, Rosemary's Baby, like Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980), is best described as a psychological thriller or suspense story. Polanski's film, adapted from a novel by Ira Levin, isn't furnished with bloody murders and shocking off-screen entrances. Rather, what makes Rosemary's Baby terrifying is the sense of inevitability. Yes, this inevitability not only manifests itself in the plot, as Rosemary is incapable of stopping the plans set in motion by her neighbors, but from the audience as well. Polanski cues us in to the cult's true intent quite early with the aid of surrealistic dream sequence, so we're aware of Rosemary's potential fate far sooner than she is. Hitchcock once described the difference between surprise and suspense as involving the knowledge of the audience, concluding that in order to fully capitalize upon suspense, "the public must be informed."