Before The Exorcist or The Omen, the original demon child movie was Roman Polanski’s classic, Rosemary’s Baby. Set in bustling New York City, the film draws out fear in an indirect manner. Rather than having memorable jump scares or gross gags, Polanski draws out the fear from realism; he uses human actions like manipulation and deceit that allows audience members to comprehend the true horror that’s taking place. Despite presenting a narrative that consistently builds up suspense, Polanski disguises the movie as a familiar narrative of new neighbor meets nosy neighbor. I love Rosemary’s Baby because it requires multiple viewings. You may seem to understand the movie at its conclusion, but there are so many technical details Polanski leaves for us to fish out.

It’s only appropriate that Rosemary’s Baby was released in the heat of 1968, a tumultuous year that saw growing social tensions reaching a boiling point—from the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy to the divisiveness catalyzed by America’s involvement in the Vietnam war. The movie portrays the national shift from the emphasis on American ideology to abandoning these values and taking matters into one’s own hands. And Polanski executes this through the eyes of Mia Farrow’s Rosemary, a character who we see transform from a naïve and subordinate 1950s housewife into a woman coming to grips with who her enemies are and trying to gain back control.

As is customary in plenty of Polanski films, the director pairs his narrative with a tension that progressively builds to a thunderous final act. And in a case of dramatic irony, we aren’t left wondering what the secret is—Polanski makes it clear to us by laying out the pieces of the puzzle—but instead, we’re left wondering how the inevitable will unfold and what will be Rosemary’s physical and emotional response.

The film takes place in the crowded atmosphere of Manhattan and Mia Farrow plays Rosemary Woodhouse, a dainty and passive housewife. Her husband, Guy (played by John Cassavetes), is a struggling actor looking for his big break. The sharp age difference between the two only further validates the subordinate role that Rosemary envelops. As soon as they move into the Bramford on the Upper West Side, they meet their invasive neighbors, Minnie and Roman Castevet (played by Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer, respectively). As soon as Guy starts to become close with the Castevets, he mysteriously nabs a role in a play after the original actor is blinded under unexplained circumstances. Afterwards, Rosemary becomes pregnant following a night of hallucinations that depict a devil-like creature raping her (this is the closest the film gets in drawing out fear from the supernatural). We soon find out that Rosemary is pregnant with the spawn of Satan and the Castevets are ring leaders of a Satanic cult, having set their sights on Rosemary to unknowingly bring the Antichrist into the world.

Rosemary’s Baby stands out, especially today, because it occupies the backseat of today’s horror movies. Nowadays, we’ve become accustomed to everything that’s being released today, which primarily focuses on the jump scares and heavy gore. The fast pace of these Blumhouse-produced flicks serve no match for the calmly-paced films of the ‘60s and ‘70s that seamlessly paired horrific fantasy with realistic narratives. So then, why is Polanski’s film or The Exorcist or The Omen deemed such classics by movie buffs and film critics today? It’s because these movies allow us to become invested in whatever the protagonist is going through. Whatever Rosemary sees or feels, we experience the emotions with her. Polanski also takes the familiar surroundings of urban living to show us that this story can really happen.

Cinematographer William Fraker employs the use of mise-en-scène for the purpose of creating a realistic atmosphere. Also used prominently in Polanski’s next Hollywood feature, Chinatown, mise-en-scène refers to the entirety of any given shot or the expressive totality in one film image. As Rosemary and Guy are exploring their future apartment, the camera moves with them, traveling outside the frame of the initial shot and giving life to everything that surrounds the borders of the camera. These long and uncut takes help us become invested into the main character’s perspective and heightens the suspense by feeding us information in real time. A prime example of this is towards the end when Rosemary goes to find her newborn baby and sneaks into the Castavets’ apartment only to find a group of people sitting and chatting around a black crib. Although we know that this congregation is made up of Satan worshippers gathering to celebrate the birth of the Antichrist, we still are experiencing the same distraught emotions as Rosemary when the camera is following her POV.

Rosemary’s physical transformation symbolizes the cultural shift that America observes during this social revolutionary period. In the first half of the film, we see Rosemary donning pigtails and fulfilling the role of common housewife plucked from the suburbs. She’s naïve and obedient to whatever everyone says around her. Without hesitation, she drinks the herbal drink that Minnie Castevet makes for her during her pregnancy. She passively complies over the fact that her husband practically rapes her unconscious body simply because he “didn’t want to miss baby night.” And Dr. Sapirstein (Ralph Bellamy)—the obstetrician recommended by the Castavets—informs Rosemary to stay away from books, disempowering her and thus fulfilling the role of the patriarchy. By the second half of the film, she cuts off most of her hair. When Guy disapproves of Rosemary’s haircut while she embraces it, it’s apparent that she’s seemingly rejecting the patriarchy and instead doing something for herself only, something that the ideal conservative family would frown upon. As the pregnancy pain increases, there’s a moment where a group of women at Rosemary’s party surround her and plead for her to see a regular doctor, Dr. Hill. This imagery serves as a parallel to the national notion of women uplifting each other during the era of the feminist critique. Although the inevitable occurs in the end, we see Rosemary making strides towards gaining some of the control that she never had in the first half of the film—she begins to read books, she dumps Minnie’s drinks into the drain, and she begins to trust her own instincts. Of course, this proves to be too little and too late when she finds out just what exactly her neighbors are and what their plot was. And for a second, it seems that she returns to her old conservative ways when her maternal instincts kick in and she begins to rock the crib of her newborn baby. However, I see this scene as an ending that shows Rosemary fully embracing the control that she’s regained. She is not forced to care for the baby—she chooses to and this is symbolized by the last shot of Rosemary smiling down at the baby.

Rosemary’s Baby oozes fear by not showing us what’s there. Polanski leaves it to the audience members to deduce what’s taking place next door, or what Guy is up to when Rosemary is not with him. Setting up the camera so that it follows Rosemary, we mainly watch the movie through Rosemary’s eyes. When we’re not watching her perspective, we’re looking at her and her expressions. A classic example—and one that’s definitely studied by film teachers everywhere—is the memorable scene in which Rosemary approaches the crib to see her baby for the first time. All we see is Rosemary’s eyes widen as she dramatically covers her mouth with her hand in utter terror, and all we hear is this booming invasion of horns that lets us know what exactly is going on inside Rosemary’s head. Polanski’s conscious decision to not show the baby is one of cinema’s great twists. As a viewer, we expect to see whatever is making the protagonist recoil in total fear. But Polanski allows the viewer to conjure up the image themselves, believing that the human imagination is far scarier than whatever can be presented onscreen.

Roman Polanski succeeds with Rosemary’s Baby because he is able to take an absurd premise and make it so believable. By placing Rosemary in the center of our periphery, we are able to go through all of the suspicions with her. We follow her all the way through the ending, an ambiguous one that haunts me to this day.

CONSENSUS: 4 out of 4 tannis root pendants