A woman is thrilled to find out she’s pregnant. But as her belly grows, the more certain she becomes that her unborn child is in serious danger.
Its a 1968 movie and it was a big commercial and critical success. It is considered to be one of the best horror movies ever made. The movie was nominated for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Did not find the movie scary at all. It’s more of a drama than a horror movie. The movie creates this creepy atmosphere with the big apartment in this old building with creepy neighbors. May be the setting was a novelty for its time but it has now become a cliche. The movie Single White Female may have been paying homage/tribute to this movie with the big building and the elevator.
The movie is very slow paced and has a lot of implausible things about it. The lead character Rosemary suspects something is wrong but still continues to drink the herb drinks that her neighbors give. In a completely ridiculous and unbelievable scene Rosemary tells the Doctor who is a close friend of her neighbors that their neighbors are into witchcraft. She doesn’t find it odd that a Doctor is asking to stay off vitamins. Found it odd that she gives in when her husband says that her going to another doctor is unfair to the Doctor she is seeing and he won’t let it. There is one party scene where she is seen with some young friends but its odd that she never meets those young friends ever again.
The movie has some weird dream scenes which work very well for the movie. The scene of sex/conception was very good. And the movie seemed to be moving towards an excellent climax when she starts discovering the conspiracy. But the climax was pretty much anti climactic and the ending was horrible.
The movie is directed by Roman Polanski and looks like he is into the Satan stuff because The Ninth Gate directed by him was also about Satan and that had a creepy scene of having sex with the devil too.
Mia Farrow was excellent as Rosemary even though her character was very unbelievable. John Cassavetes was bad as her husband. Read that Robert Redford was Polanski’s first choice and I think it would have been hard to suspect him and it would have made the movie more interesting. John’s acting made me question Rosemary’s intelligence to trust this guy. Ruth Gordon was excellent as the nosy neighbor and she deservedly won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Sidney Blackmer was very good as the neighbor Roman Castevet.
