Review of Rosemary's Baby (1968) Directed by Roman Polansky and Starring Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes

What is a horror movie? In order to begin with that question, one must define horror itself. Let me make an attempt: horror is the fear that the unseen could be malevolent. Of course, so much of daily life is unseen and unknown-think of things as simple as where the tap water comes from. In Rosemary's Baby, the "unseen" nature of female sexual reproduction forms the basis of what many regard as one of the greatest horror movies ever. Perhaps it took a mind as near the edge as Polanski's to make the film; the Polish-French director has been in the news lately after being arrested in Switzerland for a 31-year-old criminal charge in the United States.

In New York City, young couple Rosemary Wodehouse (Mia Farrow) and her actor husband Guy (John Cassavetes) find an apartment in a Gothic-looking building. Rosemary is happy to meet a new girlfriend in Terry, a former drug addict who has been taken under the wing of Minnie and Roman Castevet. However, Terry later commits suicide by jumping out of the window.

Although Rosemary wants to keep a more private life, she and Guy find themselves often in the company of their older neighbors the Castevets, whose apartment is separated from theirs by only a thin wall. After her husband wins a major acting part when his rival goes suddenly blind, Rosemary becomes pregnant in a nightmarish night. Intrusions from the Castevets and the ob/gyn they recommended, Dr. Sapirstein, build her paranoia that people are after her baby. Even her husband could be in on it.

Her suspicions are partially confirmed by her research into witchcraft history. Her friend, Hutch, had provided her with the book on witchcraft, but dies after a long sickness, leaving Rosemary with the cryptic message, "The name is an anagram." The weirdness and suspense builds from there. When the baby inevitably comes, it's one of the best climaxes in film history-a wicked inverse of the nativity story that will make you think twice about Christ's virgin birth.

Rosemary's Baby brings together a host of elements into a brilliant whole. At the center is the Edgar Allan Poe-style question of whether or not the insane person is crazy or not-after all, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you. This mystery aspect of the story forces the viewer to look into the lurking crevices in every frame of the picture for a clue as to whether the pregnant Rosemary indeed has malevolent forces after her.

Further, the early scenes take on diabolical possibilities as the film hurtles forward. The pace of the action, however, is patient-as in Chinatown and The Pianist,Polanski uses long takes and subtle lighting changes to build character and suspense, instead of the editing tricks so in vogue today. The inside of a Manhattan apartment never felt so constricting.

This is a film whose brilliance requires my highest compliment: Rosemary's Baby is novelistic in its thematic complexity. Rosemary, a naïve young woman from Omaha, Nebraska, was raised Catholic but has lapsed. Unfortunately for her, she misses the Pope's visit to Yankee Stadium and instead listens to Mr. Castevete harangue about organized religion-one moment in the film that grows from tiny seed to outsized plant over the course of the film. One brilliantly subtle undercurrent is how Catholic and Satanist imagery are in combat as the film progresses. These unseen, ominous forces are like something in a Dan Brown or Left Behind novel, but in Polanski's grip religious belief and sorcery seem like horrible truths.

In the end, Rosemary's Baby does show us the possibility of a horrific world, one in which unseen forces could be diabolically malevolent. The film reminds us that an amazing occurrence-birth-has an ambiguous moral content. A baby brings such possibilities-all potentialities, both good and evil. At some level, birth itself is a horror-the unseen becomes the seen, and we make something new totally beyond our control. Made by a man who might be as close to an evil genius as the film directing world has, Rosemary's Baby is a Poe-esque horror film that will make you think twice about our sentimental notions of pregnancy.