The Scariest Movie Ever Made, If You're Catholic/Christian

Rating: 10/10 (15 March 2005)

It was 1968. Director Roman Polanski made his American debut in cinema with this film which would turn out to be his best and the most frightening horror movie ever made. For Polanski, cynicism and a bleak world view became a trademark. He had lost his parents in the horrors of World War II concentration camps. His wife Sharon Tate, pregnant in the summer of 1969 (exactly a year after this movie's release) was brutally killed by the crazed Charles Manson cult. Prior to Rosemary's Baby, Polanski had tackled horror films with "Repulsion" starring Catherine Deneuve and the slightly more comedic "Fearless Vampire Killers". So what makes Rosemary's Baby so frightening ? If you're a Christian/Catholic the credibility of this film is extremely disturbing, even blasphemous. The theme of the film is that evil wins over good, that Satan triumphs with the birth of his Son, and that God is dead. "Is God Dead ?" reads a headline in Time Magazine which Rosemary picks up while waiting at the doctor's office. In the late 60's, with the Vietnam war beginning to rage, and with the outbreak of violence and racial riots of the Civil Rights Movement and trouble at home and abroad, (at home women were rebelling and becoming independent, the pill was out, abortion was rampant) this film seems to be a symbolic/horror manifestation of the time period. Nowadays, it seems tame, and sure enough horror films influenced by this one would emerge in the 70's- The Exorcist and The Omen Series.
This film put Mia Farrow on the map. As Rosemary, the heroine in Ira Levin's novel, she is vulnerable, headstrong and ultimately tragic. It is her maternal instincts that win out in the end. Rather than killing Satan's baby, she opts to "mother" it and let it live. This is in an ironic twist a way of saying women should always be the "mother" even in the worst case scenario. Remember Rosemary believes, even at the end, that her child is not that bad, that it has a human side and that it could be "saved". She rebels against her husband, cuts her hair very short, and wants to get her own doctor. Rosemary represents the modern woman of the late 60's, looking hopeful toward the future. The past, with its mystery, evil ignorance and darkness, is represented by the ambiguous characters of the next door neighbors Roman and Minnie (Ruth Gordon). Are they well-meaning neighbors or are they really Satanic worshipers ? So many nightmarish, surreal elements make us believe it's all some kind of drug-induced hallucination. Rosemary's dream, in which she is aboard a ship with the Presidential couple J.F.K. and Jackie, where a monstrous Devil appears to rape and impregnate her, is so frightening, so confusing, we don't know what's what. What exactly happened to Rosemary ? We could analyze the film for hours. The idea that this could be real is what makes this film, which is otherwise slow-paced, mannered, so frightening. Its horror lies in its psychology and philosophy. John Cassevetes is doing a terrific job as the selfish, materialistic and greedy actor who makes a deal with the Devil. Poor Rosemary. We believe her. We know she is trapped in the evil cult. It is the despair, the futility of escape that makes us most frightened and uneasy. For Polanski, this movie was his emergence into mainstream, American cinema, while at the same time an expression of his own torment.