Lamplight Drivel

Spoilers  1968's ROSEMARY'S BABY is one of the most vivid and assured nightmares ever committed to celluloid.  A study in paranoia that confirmed director Roman Polanski's talents, which engineers tension and suspense without allowing his actors to succumb to ham fat or to spike the decibel meter.  At least until that celebrated climax.  Even then the director, who faithfully adapted Ira Levin's occult novel maintains perfectly modulated dread.  It's a horror by many definitions, and succeeds on all counts.  Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and Guy (John Cassavetes) Woodhouse are a young couple who decide to rent a unit in a neo-Renaissance apartment building in Manhattan.  A place with a dark history, and where the previous tenant in their flat had recently died.  Things look ominous when a young woman is found dead on the sidewalk.  The one Rosemary had just met in the laundry room shortly before.  The woman had been staying with the elderly coup...