Rosemary’s Baby

1968 Directed by Roman Polanski

Horror Marathon Day 24 Film 39

Pregnancy anxiety. Rosemary is moving in with her actor husband into a New York apartment that's been converted to multiple units. The space is a bit decayed, even as it's wallpapered over you get this spooky sense of the space. The vents allow everyone to hear your secrets. Mia Farrow plays Rosemary as a girl in the beginning- in her naiveness she doesn't notice her husband's obsession with his career.

Strange circumstance and a suicide lead them to be closer to an elderly couple in the building- Here the elderly couple remarks on the Pope's hypocrisy of being an entertainer first. The weird smells and herbal witchery of the elderly couple are more signs of weird happenings- especially after Rosemary's husband starts getting more acting gigs and she's left to herself at home. Throughout the film Rosemary is asked if she'll bear children- another insistence of society- as much as the elderly couple keep pushing themselves on Rosemary's space at home.

When Rosemary cuts her hair it's her own small power that she's trying to take control of- a small sliver of herself that proclaims her transformation into womanhood. She's become frail and sick as the beast grows inside of her- and an early rape dream where her husband describes having sex with her as a corpse is unsettling. The reveal of occult activity doesn't come as too much of a surprise then- but the soundtrack drags the film to a turgid pace. Rosemary investigates the strange occurrence and the film loses much of the tension of mental anguish- once Rosemary embraces her fate it almost comes as a sweet comfort.