Although the film itself looks dated, the screenplay is still one of horror's best and most unsettling!

Rating: 7/10 (21 August 2005)

Assuming that pretty much everyone knows about the plot of this film by now, I won't pen down another synopsis... Personally, I always thought that Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" is much more of an intelligently scripted conspiracy-drama, rather than a diabolical horror story. The most captivating element about this film is NOT the presence of witch covens and devil-worshipers, but the depressing transformation Mia Farrow's character goes through. Rosemary Woodhouse is introduced as a healthy and happily married housewife with a strong desire to raise a family but near the end she's a tormented woman, obviously hurt and disappointed by the people she cared for most. The screenplay of this classic title  adapted from Ira Levin's novella by Polanski himself  definitely doesn't rush things and establishes an atmospheric portrait in which it's never really clear whether the occurring events are real...or fragments of Rosemary's frustrated imagination. Polanski severely tests his viewers here! You presume that the supernaturalness is there and that there really are witches, since you mainly witness it all from Rosemary's viewpoints but ... Aren't we imagining as well? The constant and brutal blending of reality and hallucination is what really feels disturbing here... And I can guarantee it's more genuinely disturbing than showing actual witch-rites or bloody massacres. This surely isn't a film for all types of audiences, since it's very slow and almost bloodless. If you don't approach the story in the right state of mind, many sequences will seem tedious and pointless. Many aspects also look quite dated by now (woman luckily aren't as docile and obedient to their husbands anymore) and the intense melancholia-tone often is very hard to digest.