Rosemary’s Baby

I watched Roman Polanski’s first U.S. film, Rosemary’s Baby, the other day and have to admit I was a little bit indifferent to it. Considering it was recently voted the 2^nd best horror film ever by Guardian critics, I was expecting a bona fide classic – it is surrounded by Psycho, The Shining, The Exorcist and Let the Right One In on the list, for God’s sake! That said, there’s no doubting that it is well made and has had an enormous and obvious influence on so many subsequent movies, but has it aged that well?

Adapted from a bestselling novel by Ira Levin, it tells the story of a young couple (played by John Cassavetes and Mia Farrow) who move into a creepy apartment block in New York City. There, they are befriended by an even creepier elderly couple (the utterly convincing Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer), who take an unusual interest in the couple wanting to have a baby. Events take an inevitable left turn down crazy street and there is a heavy dose of the supernatural. As Rosemary becomes isolated in the apartment block, the grand Polanski themes of persecution, paranoia and motherhood are explored very thoroughly.

Yet for me the film can work on two levels: either as a straight-down-the-line supernatural horror film or as a psychological thriller – neither of which it really delivers on. Firstly, there is not enough supernatural, full-on horror material for it to be truly scary or uncanny. All we see are an odd, Freudian dream sequence and a glimpse of the baby’s eyes. It is tense, however, as one might expect from a psychological thriller. But even there, it falls down because of Rosemary’s complete lack of realistic actions or independence. This may work in normal horror films, where one accepts that the characters will act moronically, but in any meaningful attempt to analyze the human psyche it just does not cut the mustard. A paranoid would clearly make more of an effort to escape.

So, all in all, you could put the film in the good-not-great category. It is well acted, well paced and undeniably tense but there is something missing there. That events are seen solely from Rosemary’s perspective is an inventive and effective way of heightening the viewer’s anxiety and feeling of paranoia, but is at times a source of frustration. Rosemary’s Baby is worth watching, especially for fans of the genre; but, in my opinion, it does not quite live up to its billing as one of the finest horror flicks of all time. Creepy and crafted, not downright terrifying – it may well be the fault of the source material.