A young
couple move into a new apartment to try for a child but Rosemary begins to notice
that the neighbours’ friendly exterior has some sinister inconsistencies.
The
music was particularly striking in this film and more innovative than one would
expect from of film of the late 60s. It has an unusual habit of changing from
regular incidental music which suits the scene to discordant jazz type sounds.
The cinematography was also eerie and had some interesting shot choices. Also
the acting helped secure the drama quality overall too.
The
story is a little long in places as it’s a lengthy film so inevitably some
parts are slower than others but it was all still engaging. There are some
parts that are slower and the characters are caught up doing trivial things for
long whiles but there’s always an undercurrent of threat or something
unsettling about how it’s shot that prevents it being entirely domestic.
The
film is most effective because Rosemary feels like a normal person with regular
motivations and realistic decisions, but also shows a keen perceptiveness and
reasoning skills. This makes her easy to identify with the audience because
even though she’s in the position of the victim, she’s still smart enough to
fight back in the only ways she can, even her paranoia is born through
reasonable doubt rather than hysteria.
Despite
her intelligent deductions and attempted escapes Rosemary doesn’t really get
much chance to fight back since she’s outnumbered, constantly vulnerable
because of the pregnancy, and is obliged to protect her child. The ending is
rather indistinct and although it works out as an iconic enigmatic horror
ending, it still leaves various nagging questions.
6/10
-Just a cut above average-
-The
original novel had characters called Roman and Mia, for this adaptation the
director and lead actor shared the same first names respectively.
-As
well as the name anagram, the word Tannis is also an anagram for Satinn, an old
spelling of Satan.
-The
baby’s due date is in June of 1966, or 6-66.
