13 Nights of Shocktober: Rosemary's Baby (1968)

 by A.J. 

Night 2: New Hollywood Horror Night

“This is no dream. This is really happening!”

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

In 1968 two films were released that would forever change the landscape of horror movies: Rosemary’s Baby and George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. Prior to these films, most horror films were period pieces and fantasies set in castles with period costumes and monsters. Universal monster movies of the 1930’s and the British Hammer Films and Roger Corman produced movies of the late 50’s and early to mid-60’s typified the genre. Both Rosemary’s Baby and Night of the Living Dead had contemporary settings—though Rosemary’s Baby is technically set two or three years before it was released—and approached their respective plots with a stark realism missing from most horror movies (Val Lewton’s horror movies for RKO in the 1940’s being the exception). It is hard to believe that a dark and disturbing movie like Rosemary’s Baby had such broad appeal upon its release. It's hard to believe that Rosemary’s Baby has sustained its appeal over the decades. Even today it casts its creepy spell and people who say they do not like horror movies will watch Rosemary’s Baby.

I think the most difficult thing for a modern viewer to understand is that the movie’s final revelation is supposed to be a twist. Like Psycho (1960) and Planet of the Apes (also released in 1968), the final twist is maybe the most famous thing about the movie. Both Ira Levin’s novel and the film adaptation play up suspicions about witches, witchcraft, and secret covens. All of the evidence Rosemary finds points to her new neighbors, friends, and doctor being part of a coven but she does not guess the true nature of her pregnancy. She comes to believe that they plan to sacrifice her baby in some sort of ritual.

Mia Farrow gives her signature performance as Rosemary Woodhouse. She is not a damsel but she is a person unaware of the danger around them until it is too late. Her petite figure accentuated by her pixie haircut (it’s “Vidal Sassoon” she says to everyone taken aback by her short hair) visually enhances that sense of looming danger. This only increases with her pregnancy. The stress of an unusual pregnancy, changing personality of her husband, and her isolation, paranoia, and realization that the circle of people she can trust is shrinking are effectively portrayed by Farrow. 

It is interesting that Rosemary’s Baby was such a watershed for horror movies, yet it began as a more conventional horror movie. William Castle, the B-movie producer famous for cheesy horror movies that used outlandish gimmicks (most famously rigging certain seats with buzzers for The Tingler), wanted to try his hand at more serious filmmaking. He optioned the rights to Ira Levin’s novel and planned to direct with his friend and frequent collaborator Vincent Price playing Rosemary’s sinister doctor. However, Paramount executive Robert Evans saw the potential for a substantial horror movie and hired Roman Polanski, then an upcoming European filmmaker of tense movies like Repulsion, later to be a fugitive from America, to direct.

Castle remained on the movie as producer, but Polanski as writer and director unlocked the potential that Evans saw. Polanski did not upend horror tropes of the time; rather, he stayed away from sensationalism, downplayed the supernatural, and grounded the film in a recognizable reality. Even the dream scenes retain a realistic but strange look, which only increases their surreal and disturbing tone–especially since one of those dreams turns out to be very real. The most important thing the film does is put us in Rosemary’s place, sometimes literally though POV shots. Unlike countless other horror movies, we don’t want anything bad to happen to her. The horror of Rosemary’s Baby is that it all feels so plausible. 

Whether you know the conclusion or not, Rosemary’s Baby is an incredibly effective horror film. Fashions and automobiles aside, little about it feels dated. In his review, Roger Ebert notes that instead of using surprise to scare the audience the movie uses a feeling of inevitability to create horror. That feeling of inevitability casts a tone of doom and dread over the whole movie and it lingers in the mind of the viewer. This is one of the greats of the modern horror era, but not the last thing you want to watch before going to bed.

Rosemary's Baby airs on TCM on Saturday, October 25th at 8:30CT and is available to stream on Paramount+, Kanopy, and Hoopla.

13 Nights of Shocktober: Night of the Living Dead

by A.J.

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 1: "They're coming to get you, Barbara." Night of the Living Dead

 

It’s very interesting that zombies have joined vampires, ghosts, demons, and werewolves in the pantheon of supernatural scares since the zombie as we know it—the cannibalistic living corpse that can only be killed by damage to the head and brain and whose bite will turn you into one—has only been in existence since 1968. George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead makes no mention of zombies, the creatures in the movie are referred to as “ghouls.” A review called them zombies and the new definition stuck. Before Romero’s film, any movie zombie was more of a Haitian zombie, someone tricked into believing that they are dead and forced to serve a master. It’s also interesting to note, for entirely different reasons, that according the History Channel documentary Zombies: A Living History, more than half of all zombie movies have been produced after September 11, 2001. But that’s a topic for another day. 

 

Night of the Living Dead, like another important horror movie from 1968, Rosemary’s Baby, takes place in a familiar setting (rural Pennsylvania) and in the present day. Most earlier horror movies were period pieces set in castles. George Romero did not intend for Night of the Living Dead to be a political film; however, with an African American actor as the lead, playing a dignified man of action, social commentary and political subtext were unavoidable. What the zombies are a metaphor for and what the social commentary has to say are the source of discussion that can be as interesting as it is endless.

 

This low budget horror movie made 45 years ago is still a creepy and chilling experience. Its simple story of a group of people, holed up in a house, just trying to survive makes the horror universal and the political subtext manages to change with the times, keeping the movie relevant.