Review of Rosemary's Baby (1968) by Johnny T — 26 Jun 2011

A frightening tale of Satanism and pregnancy that is even more disturbing than it sounds thanks to convincing and committed performances by Mia Farrow and Ruth Gordon. 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. Having escaped the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust in Poland by the skin of his teeth, Mr. Polanski was well equipped psychologically to re-imagine what was, before Rosemary's Baby, a B-picture genre into an A-picture genre. Polanski's most startling accomplishment is ultimately twisting something as natural as maternal instinct into something horrifying, if not downright monstrous. 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.

VERDICT: "Full Price" - My second highest rating (Positive to Mixed reaction). This is a rating to a movie I view as very entertaining and well made, and definitely worth paying the full price at a theatre to see or own on DVD. It is not perfect, but it is definitely excellent.