Roman Polanski is an awful, woman-terrorizing human being; so, I guess it sorta fits that he’s made one of the most gripping and unnerving depictions of a woman being terrorized by something awful. In this case the awful thing is a baby, as you might guess from the title, but a baby she suspects comes from the devil rather than her aloof husband.
What makes this movie so powerful is the contrast between Rosemary’s dreary domestic life and her growing fear that she is bearing spawn of Satan. She is belittled in so many ways – demeaned by neighbors, dismissed by her husband, betrayed by a doctor she confides in. Any of these actions in isolation might be a normal thing that happens to a pregnant woman living in a stately old Manhattan apartment building and married to an actor; yet in accumulation they create a deeply unsettling depiction of evil.
Mia Farrow is phenomenal as Rosemary and she’s buoyed by a great supporting cast including John Cassavetes as her husband and Ruth Gordon as her domineering neighbor. (Gordon won an Oscar for her performance, the movie’s only golden statuette.)
It’s a miraculous achievement of a horror film, perfectly paced and so canny in building dread with only sparing use of supernatural imagery (really just a dream sequence of uncertain literal reality). I’m especially infatuated with the production, turning Rosemary’s apartment into a Gothic prison full of suffocating rooms and haunted corridors.
This review appeared in Goodie Bag: Witch Movies
Is It Good?
Exceptionally Good (7/8)
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