Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Runtime: 2 hrs 16 mins
Synopsis: Roman Polanski's stylish occult thriller ROSEMARY'S BABY is possibly the director's most famous film and was a big box-office success at the time of its 1968 release. This was Polanski's first American feature film, following his frightening 1965 REPULSION, which was made in England. The... Roman Polanski's stylish occult thriller ROSEMARY'S BABY is possibly the director's most famous film and was a big box-office success at the time of its 1968 release. This was Polanski's first American feature film, following his frightening 1965 REPULSION, which was made in England. The use of producer William Castle--famous for popular low-budget horror--helped propel Polanski forward into a long and rigorous career as one of the masters of the genre. The terrifying satanic story forever haunts fans of this cult film, the setting of which--Manhattan's Dakota building--carries a ghost story of its own as the location of John Lennon's assassination. A young, happily married couple, waif-like Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and struggling actor Guy (John Cassavetes), move into a spacious apartment in a venerable old building off Central Park. They are befriended by the elderly couple next door, Roman (Sidney Blackmer) and Minnie Castavet (Ruth Gordon in an Oscar-winning performance), who seem to take a special interest in Rosemary's well-being. Shortly after another young woman in the building commits suicide by jumping out a window, Rosemary begins to be plagued by disturbing dreams, including a hallucinogenic black mass sequence in which she is raped by something "inhuman" while surrounded by a host of unlikely spectators. Rosemary discovers she is pregnant and soon falls violently ill. The Castavets offer advice and home remedies and even go so far as to talk her into seeing a new doctor of their choosing. But when the young couple's friend Hutch (Maurice Evans) exposes her eccentric but seemingly well-meaning neighbors as members of a witches' coven, Rosemary realizes that she is the victim of a deeply evil conspiracy and that no one can be trusted--not even her own husband. [More]
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Starring: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Ralph Bellamy, Sidney Blackmer
Screenwriter: Roman Polanski
Producer: William Castle
Composer: Krzysztof Komeda
Buy It On DVD
Reviews
... a serious effort that gradually and carefully constructs a mounting sense of paranoia ...
Roman Polanski's horror classic is literally pregnant with paranoia.... Arguably the finest American horror movie of the 1960s.
Several exhilarating milestones are achieved in Rosemary's Baby, an excellent film version of Ira Levin's diabolical chiller novel.
The brilliance of the film is that it takes this realistic basis and builds upon it with supernatural metaphors that make pregnancy a rich and strange condition.
Superbly acted (especially by bone-thin Farrow and Ruth Gordon as the ultimate neighbor from hell), it’s a satantango in the land of Is-this-real-or-am-I-crazy?, with a luridly literal ending that doesn’t negate the previous, more interior terrors.
A very sophisticated, very effective piece of work spun from primal images, with an excellent cast.
Polanski's most startling accomplishment is ultimately twisting something as natural as maternal instinct into something horrifying, if not downright monstrous.
A supremely intelligent and convincing adaptation of Ira Levin's Satanist thriller.
An intelligent and faithful adaptation of Ira Levin's Satanists thriller.
It should establish Mia Farrow as an actress of stature and Roman Polanski as a name which will be remembered.
It is a creepy film and a crawly film, and a film filled with things that go bump in the night. It is very good.
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