True confession: I don't like Halloween. I don't like all the creepazoid decorations. I get tired of orange and black (and purple and green....) And I don't do scary movies. Not so much. And if it were up to me, we'd be the horrifying door to knock because we'd be handing out pencils and balloons.
If there were a Hallow's Eve Ebenezer Scrooge, that would be me.
And so on October 31, when there's a Friday the 13th marathon running on television, I'll quietly slip into bed without a blink of an eye. Cornball slasher or not, I hate suspense and I really hate gore-y suspense.
But there is one classic horror movie I'll watch. Only one: Rosemary's Baby.
I love this movie for all of the visual loveliness.
Filmed in 1968, the style, the colors, and the acting aren't so much kitsch as they are real and gritty.
It's New York City. It's The Dakota.
It's Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes,
and the ever-eccentric Ruth Gordon.
And I love this movie for the portrayal of isolation, conspiracy, and paranoia with a helpless and pregnant Rosemary Woodhouse in the midst of a hot, summery metropolis on the Upper East side.
If you choose to watch a movie in the spirit of this Halloween, I implore you to be stunned by the creepy but glorious Rosemary's Baby.
4 comments:
oh GOD! it's so good for all that you mentioned. The fashion, the HAIR!
I watched this the first time during a snow storm, alone, in a cabin in Tahoe.
It completely freaked me out.
and it's so funny that with all the eye candy, style, gorgeous and doe-like Mia Farrow...it's a freight-fest.
(Scott and I have no less than a dozen or so Ruth Gordon quotes from this movie....she's amazing)
Would you believe I first saw this movie at a Drive-In theater, with my high school sweetheart. How tacky and freaky is that!
I LOVE November 1st.
Halloween is history.
Would giving squirts of hand lotion, as the reward for coming to our door, be so bad?
Of course this is only playing out in my mind, as our 3 kids would be mortified.
WI reader
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