October 14 – Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Posted: by Sean Gonzalez
Rosemary’s Baby (1968) Directed by Roman Polanski
In One Sentence: A chilling film about the psychological terror in thinking your pregnancy might be a way to bring forth a demon into the world.
Why You Should Watch: Have you ever seen Mad Men? Of course you have, you’re culturally relevant. Anyways, remember in Season Six when ad man Donald Draper is with his daughter in a movie and they are absolutely horrified at what is happening on film and then they discuss the film at hand, Rosemary’s Baby. It’s a film that brought such a culture shock to the populace back in the day and even now it’s regarded as a fucking classic because well, it is. Not to mention Every Time I Die make reference to it in the song ‘Roman Holiday.’ Also, I remember talking about this movie with one of my former roommates and we whole heartedly agree this is one of the greatest psychologically f*cked movies to ever watch.
Hell, this film started a wave of movies to be based on cults and devil worshipping, not to mention being one of, if not the first horror movie discussing the beloved antichrist. The blessing of this film is watching Mia Farrow have her life sucked out of her by this, thing. You never fully see it, you never really come to terms with it, but it’s the acting power of Farrow that makes you believe in the horror of it all. The scene where she throws a slab of raw meat in a pan for about three seconds and then eats it is bone chilling. Watching her physically decay gave birth (haha) to the idea that maybe it wasn’t just a mental breakdown, but something really is not right here. Her brilliance was the backdrop for the rest of the cast to shine as a gang of crazies willing to do whatever it takes to to bring out the beast. Ruth Gordon is absolutely terrifying in her role as a friendly neighbor into weird things such as herbs and charms.
Can we discuss the charm of male counterpart John Cassavettes? His character brings a biting sense of humor into the film, but it’s almost overlooked between his terrifying antics of necrophilia and his care taking. His small one liners between creepy shit happening are well timed and really disturbing. Hell I could go on about the entire acting of every character if I wanted to.
Roman Polanski directed this in a beautiful fashion as well, with the film aging wonderfully. Watching it today shows how graceful the movie looks, really making you question how the hell this film came out so early into the game. The shots are well thought out, capturing the essence of an apartment extremely well. You have to remember this is legitimately part of Polanski’s “apartment trilogy.” It’s a magnificent context and you never really think about how well used the lack of space is to showcase how a giant city has such small situations of alarming terror.
Favorite line: I dreamed someone was raping me. I think it was someone inhuman.
