Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Starring Mia Farrow as a young woman recently moved into a New York apartment who becomes pregnant to hubby John Cassavetes (maybe) and soon begins to suspect the other tenants are a satanic cult who intend to use her new born for occult rituals.
I have a weird relationship with Rosemary's Baby. On one hand i really don't like it. I don't like the characters, especially Ruth Gordon's annoyingly friendly busy body neighbour, other than Farrow who is excellent, but that's also the whole point. You aren't supposed to like them. They are there to creep both Rosemary and the viewer out. Roman Polanski's film is one of paranoia and suspicion and because of these sickly sweet characters inhabiting this plush yet musty building it works beautifully.
On the other hand once you get into the story it becomes riveting viewing. Polanski creates scares and dreadful unease in the most familiar and downright dull daily routines and gives the 'friendly neighbour' concept an edgy sense of anxiety. Worst of all the sense of dread builds to levels of intensity that aren't dissipated by what is a subtle and almost inevitable conclusion.
Look out for the lovely cameo from Victoria Vetri (When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth / Invasion of the Bee Girls) it's the most amusing chink of light in the entire film...until she ends up a bloody pulp on the New York sidewalk.
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