Rosemary's Baby review

 Number 345 on the top 1000 films of all time is Roman Polanski's 1968 psychological-horror film 'Rosemary's Baby.'

Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) and her husband, stage-actor, Guy (John Cassavetes) are two newlyweds who have just moved to New York. Looking to settle down and start a family, they are soon expecting a baby. But Rosemary suspects that her husband and her neighbours have sinister intentions for her unborn child.

Production designer Richard Sylbert deemed this the "greatest horror film without any horror in it." I don't think I could have described this film any better. Despite not having any gore, jump scares or big, bad villain, Polanski still created an overwhelming sense of dread. True, the villains are a coven of witches, but it's not like Halloween, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre or the Wickerman where you can identify one key villain. 

You know that things are going to hit the fan - it's just a question of when. This is a film comprised of small, scary jigsaw pieces like the apparent suicide of Rosemary's neighbour or Guy getting the main part in a play, by virtue of another actor going inexplicably blind, which all add up to a frightening picture - Rosemary has been impregnated with the anti-Christ. All of these small parts culminate in a fever dream where Rosemary imagines that she is being raped by a demonic presence - perhaps even the devil himself. When she wakes up, she discovers that Guy actually raped her while she was asleep.

During production, Mia Farrow was undergoing with some marital problems with then-husband Frank Sinatra. He wanted her to leave the film and she was about to relent, before a studio executive convinced her to stay saying that she would win an Oscar for her performance. She stayed, Sinatra divorced her and Farrow wasn't even nominated for an Academy Award. Some have labelled this an egregious snub. I would agree. Farrow was great. She portrayed the fear, terror, but also resoluteness that you would expect from somebody like Rosemary.

I found it strange that Farrow wasn't nominated yet her co-star Ruth Gordon was not only nominated, but went onto win for Best Supporting Actress. Gordon played Farrow's neighbour Minnie Castevet - a busy body who becomes a little too involved in Rosemary and her unborn baby. It was a fine performance. It certainly wasn't bad by any stretch of the imagination. Was it Oscar-worthy? Was it memorable enough to justify winning an Academy Award? I'm not too sure about that.

Nonetheless, Rosemary's Baby was probably one of the scariest horror films I've seen that didn't have any actual horror in it - other than Farrow being snubbed by the Academy, of course.

Harold and Maude review

Number 255 on the top 1000 films of all time is the 1971 black romantic-comedy 'Harold and Maude.'

Harold Chasen (Bud Cort) is a young man who has a morbid fascination with death. He regularly enjoys staging his own suicide much to the dislike of his mother who is worried about her social status. But Harold then meets the carefree seventy-nine year old Maude (Ruth Gordon.) The two form an unlikely relationship.

I didn't care for this film at all. I did not like Harold's character. It would be fair to describe him as a nihilist. He is spiritually deadened and struggles to find any meaning in life. it can be difficult to write these characters so they're not annoying, spoiled or entitles, which is exactly how I would define Harold.

It didn't help that he had no discernible reason for his nihilism. You can argue that his relative affluence and wealth has left him spiritually deadened. The disconnected relationship with his shallow mother has probably done little to help matters. But I can't pinpoint a specific catalyst. Harold didn't have any defined reason for being so dead. Bud Cort also played the role with a smugness that made him irritating.

I also didn't like the film's depiction of suicide. It was gratuitous. Harold stages his suicide in multiple ways from immolation, to blowing his brains out to hanging and even slitting his wrists in a vivid display of red. It was all horribly romanticised. This is even more so considering how the only meaning he finds in his life is through death. His mother constantly dismisses his behaviours too; true she sends him to a shrink, but he is equally dismissive.

I would say that this film's redeeming feature is Ruth Gordon as Maude. She was enjoyable as a hedonistic, ageing hippy who gives no second though to breaking the rules. Despite how charming she was, it is difficult to deny that her relationship with Harold was weird. Director Hal Ashby always insisted that there was nothing untoward about it, but I don't agree. She's sixty years older than him. Flip the genders and see whether it's still the same.

I didn't care for Harold and Maude. Ruth Gordon was a delight, but Hal Ashby's treatment of suicide was off-putting.