Roman Polanski
266 connections found
Filmography
Chinatown 1974 
Rosemary's Baby 1968 
The Tenant 1976 
Repulsion 1965 
Carnage 2011 
The Ghost Writer 2010 
Knife in the Water 1962 
Frantic 1988 
The Pianist 2002 
Oliver Twist 2005 
The Fearless Vampire Killers 1967 
Cul-de-sac 1966 
Bitter Moon 1992 
Macbeth 1971 
Pirates 1986 
Tess 1979 
The Ninth Gate 1999 
The Fat and the Lean 1961 
Two Men and a Wardrobe 1958 
Venus in Fur 2013 
Death and the Maiden 1994 
What? 1972 
A Toothful Smile 1957 View:
Connections, in both directions
Last Night in Soho (2021)
Directed by Edgar Wright
influenced by Repulsion (1965)
Visuals Themes Plot
Wright’s visual acuity is too good not to enjoy visual references to Mario Bava’s colorful murder set pieces in Blood and Black Lace or Roman Polanski’s claustrophobia in paranoid thriller Repulsion .
Like its "artistic" lead character toiling away at a single fastidiously recreated dress, Last Night is a movie with a lot of fluffed-up gestures and nods to past work — whether Dario Argento's Inferno, Roman Polanski's Repulsion, John Carpenter in places — but not a lot to share itself.
The film itself brims with echoes from the past: Roman Polanski’s genuinely chilling Sixties horror film Repulsion , the presence of Sixties icons Tushingham and Terence Stamp; a terrific juke box of songs.
Adding depth to the story is Ellie’s own past, which hints at mental instability and harks back to Roman Polanski’s Repulsion , about similar madness overwhelming a similarly beautiful blonde (Catherine Deneuve) in a similarly claustrophobic 1960s London.
That evokes Polanski’s “Repulsion” (1965), but the blend of troubled personalities that become a single blonde live wire also evokes Ingmar Bergman’s “Persona” (1966).
But he isn’t interested in only riffing on one genre: He also pays tribute to noirs, notably Roman Polanski’s psycho-thriller Repulsion, which also follows a woman who experiences frightening hallucinations rooted in a fear of men.
With its references to classic spaghetti westerns, Johnny Depp films, and “Chinatown,” most critics have reason to cheer.
The more you know about movies, the cleverer and funnier the movie is, especially when you realize that the central plot is Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974)—right down to a corrupt politico (Ned Beatty) who’s nothing more, nor less than John Huston’s Noah Cross in the form of a turtle.
The question before us: For whom is this blend of spaghetti Western and “Chinatown” meant?
It is not a coincidence that the mayor (voiced by Ned Beatty) sounds like the evil John Huston character from Chinatown as the film makes an obvious nod toward that film classic as well as the numerous western themes that show up.
Sadly, this irreverent western gallery of personified animals can't quite sustain its gonzo verve for feature length (it's all too easy to see through the plot to the lurking Chinatown revelation, although a third act cameo sets a high water mark of awesome, especially for fans of Deadwood), but it's still as genuinely idiosyncratic and effortlessly entertaining as the best of big-budget family features.
Johnny Depp gives voice to a chameleon who fibs his way into becoming sheriff of a desert outpost; the eccentric residents are plagued by a long drought and assorted predators, the most menacing of whom is a two-faced, water-hoarding mayor (Ned Beatty, channeling John Huston in Chinatown).
Get Out (2017)
Directed by Jordan Peele
influenced by Rosemary's Baby (1968), The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967)
Themes Visuals Plot
To be fair, Peele is clearly riffing on some films he has seen before, including “The Stepford Wives” and “ Rosemary’s Baby ,” although with a charged, racial twist.
Rose’s parents throw a party for their wealthy white neighbors, who show up looking like Satanic extras from “Rosemary’s Baby,” and who proceed to assail Chris with their country-club manners and moronic attempts at conversation.
Cinematically, Peele draws influences from The Stepford Wives, Rosemary’s Baby and anything where a secret collective hides behind their portrait of cheery perfection.
“Get Out” is a cutting-edge, fresh and sometimes bat-bleep-crazy mash-up of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” and “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Stepford Wives,” with dashes of John Carpenter’s “They Live,” among other films, mixed in for good measure.
Writer-director Jordan Peele is best known as a comedian (he was the Peele in Comedy Central's Key & Peele), but he is also a horror-movie fiend, and is aiming here for the escalating, vise-tightening tension of movies he’s admired (his influences include Rosemary’s Baby, and he’s named his female lead Rose).
Just as “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Stepford Wives” transformed the genre into panicky feminist fantasias, this becomes a mind trip of interracial mistrust.
Annabelle (2014)
Directed by John R. Leonetti
influenced by Rosemary's Baby (1968), Repulsion (1965)
Visuals Plot Characters
Annabelle‘s Polanski homages are particularly awful in that they don’t just derive from Rosemary’s Baby, but they also reference and ape the Manson Family murders, simultaneously trying to respect Polanski while essentially shitting on the grave of his wife and unborn child.
Indeed, the story line is largely borrowed from “Rosemary’s Baby,” with nods to “The Omen,” “Witchboard,” and even “Poltergeist.”
Rosemary's Baby was released in 1968 – could Mia have been named by the filmmakers in tribute to the movie's star, Mia Farrow, who also played a maternal figure under threat?
Directed by John R. Leonetti (cinematographer of " The Conjuring " and 2011's " Insidious ") with an accomplished zing for provoking a visceral aura of tension, "Annabelle" holds a modern relevance even as its period details and deliberate yet gripping pacing remind of Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" and William Friedkin's "The Exorcist."
There are unsubtle nods to Rosemary’s Baby, The Changeling et al, but for the most part it’s back to the de rigueur “quiet-quiet-quiet-BOO!” formula popularised to money-spinning effect by James Wan. Director John R Leonetti served as cinematographer on several of Wan’s films (including The Conjuring) so it’s no surprise that this looks much the same – although to be fair the scares are orchestrated with more flair than usual, even if the best of them are all spoiled in the trailer.
Mia is heavily pregnant (and is the character’s name a sly homage to the star of Rosemary’s Baby?), and her husband gifts her with the large-size doll she’s apparently been coveting to complete her collection.
The Babadook (2014)
Directed by Jennifer Kent
influenced by Repulsion (1965), Rosemary's Baby (1968), The Tenant (1976)
Themes Visuals
Several horror movies play on the concept of motherly love as a pure love and a strong enough to vanquish evil like in Mama , but rarely outside of drama do we see the kind of imperfect motherhood shown in The Babadook, which is what makes this Repulsion-like household of horrors so frightening.
As in Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, ordinary household objects gain malignity as the isolation and claustrophobia sets to work on mother and son.
There are many other echoes of screen horror here: clips of Maria Bava’s Black Sabbath; portents of domestic madness in the mode of Polanski’s Repulsion; a general sense of claustrophobia that’s more than a little reminiscent of The Exorcist; a use of grey paint and an overall color-leeched palette to rival The Sixth Sense; and as female-centric psychological horror, it also recalls the evocation of shadow-steeped nocturnal anxiety so chillingly staged in Robert Wise’s The Haunting (63).
She also pays special attention to setting: as the monster gains power over Amelia, the house grows increasingly grotesque, like something out of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (though there are even more architectural references, to The Shining , Repulsion , and The Omen ).
It may remind you of Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) or Polanski’s horrors like Repulsion (1965), Rosemary’s Baby (1969) and The Tenant (1976).
The movie’s long final chapter takes place inside the grim house, where the depiction of Amelia’s claustrophobic crack-up — exacerbated by Sam’s fear and the possible infestation of the Babadook — splits the difference between the insanity-caused terror of Roman Polanski’s “Repulsion” and the demon-borne horror of “The Evil Dead.”
The Nice Guys is as much inspired by Black’s own reverence for classic ’70s private eye movies such as Chinatown or the tough guy films of Lee Marvin or John Cassavettes, as it is the filmmaker’s own back catalogue.
It’s in the range of Chinatown and Inherent Vice , though comparing The Nice Guys to these films is prejudicial.
In “The Nice Guys” we’re hanging out in Los Angeles circa 1977 where the neon buzz of “Boogie Nights” is everywhere and the veins of corruption, akin to “L.A. Confidential” and “Chinatown,” run deep.
It just wants you to remember Los Angeles detective conspiracies like “Chinatown,” “The Big Lebowski” and “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” lean back and enjoy the ride.
Because this is set in Los Angeles in the 1970s, we're supposed to think back to Chinatown and The Long Goodbye and excuse the opaque plot, around which Black's eccentric gags float like seasoned croutons in bland soup.
And while his convoluted plot aspires to stir memories of the likes of Chinatown and L.A. Confidential (the latter starring two of this film's players, Crowe and Kim Basinger), it's really not much more complicated or polished than any given episode of Magnum, P.I.
Inherent Vice (2014)
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
influenced by Chinatown (1974)
Visuals Plot Themes
Like many of his contemporaries, Anderson mistakes movie references for ideas — this one recalls those 1970s sunshine noirs “Chinatown” and “The Long Goodbye.”
Tubeside"), to the meandering plot, recalling The Big Sleep , Chinatown , and -- yes -- Lebowski .
Joaquin Phoenix gives a relatively restrained (for him) performance as a substance-loving private eye who gets drawn into a convoluted conspiracy very vaguely reminiscent of “Chinatown’’ involving a real-estate magnate (Eric Roberts).
The land-development angle recalls Chinatown, of course, but the biggest single influence is Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye, which similarly told the story of a private eye in a ‘70s-era Los Angeles that had left him behind.
If The Master—a better movie, if only by virtue of being one of the best of this decade so far—riffed on some of the major themes of 1940s film noir (the returning veteran, charlatanism, sexual anxiety), Inherent Vice is closer to Chinatown.
Some of the mysteries intersect and resolve — akin to “Chinatown,” with land swapped for water — but most crest and recede rather than coalesce into a clearly delineated conspiracy.
Queen of Earth (2015)
Directed by Alex Ross Perry
influenced by Rosemary's Baby (1968), Repulsion (1965), The Tenant (1976), Knife in the Water (1962)
Characters Themes Visuals
If you’re looking for an actress to re-enact Catherine Deneuve’s memorable descent into madness as depicted in the 1965 classic Repulsion, Elisabeth Moss is a fine choice.
Perry tears shamelessly from the pages of the hysterical women canon, keying into Polanski's "Repulsion" and "The Tenant," Altman's "Images" starring Susannah York, a sort of proto-"3 Women" about a splintering female psyche, with shades of Bergman and, yes, Woody Allen's own strained Bergman homage "Interiors."
Drawing from deep wells on cinephilia and, it seems, cynicism, Perry is relentless toward his characters, and his depiction of cinematic female hysteria, somewhat after the fashion of Roman Polanski, is in line with the coruscating fevers of “Knife In the Water” and “Repulsion.”
Catherine unravels in ways visually recalling Roman Polanski's "Repulsion" and, in a feverish party sequence, "Rosemary's Baby."
A deep-dish cinephile with a pronounced affection for late 1960s/early 1970s alt-Hollywood cinema, Perry is working this time in a style that seems equally influenced by doppelganger narratives like Bergman’s “Persona” and Brian De Palma’s “Sisters,” as well as by the claustrophobic domestic terror of “Repulsion” and Chantal Akerman’s seminal “Jeanne Dielman.”
Alex Ross Perry's Queen of Earth is a ferocious psychological dramedy that exudes an autumnal aura of supple, ineffably erotic regret, often suggesting what might have happened if Ingmar Bergman remade Repulsion out on his beloved Fårö.
(A similar approach to another time period, the 1950s, powered Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confidential, another superior color noir effort.)
One of the reasons "L.A. Confidential'' is so good, why is deserves to be mentioned with "Chinatown," is that it's not just plot and atmosphere.
Critics are already comparing “L.A. Confidential” to movies such as “Chinatown” and “Pulp Fiction.”
It helps that they're working with a gifted cinematographer (Dante Spinotti), a composer with deep roots in this genre (Jerry Goldsmith of "Chinatown") and a great script.
A big critical hit at the last Cannes Film Festival, it has been compared repeatedly to "Chinatown," Roman Polanski's classic 1974 L.A. noir (written by director Hanson's onetime mentor Robert Towne).
A lot of people have been comparing "L.A. Confidential" to "Chinatown," but, aside from the obvious noir detail and the setting (and the great, piano-driven music by "Chinatown" composer Jerry Goldsmith), the only thing the two movies really have in common is that absolutely nothing about the crime is what it initially seems to be.
There Will Be Blood (2007)
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
influenced by Chinatown (1974)
Themes Characters Plot
He references other films--CHINATOWN and CITIZEN KANE most notably--yet this too is a way of showing the timelessness of the examined themes.
His performance has lead to comparisons with John Huston (probably most famous these days for his turn in Chinatown), but in a way it's more reminiscent of De Niro's violent boxer Jake La Motta in Raging Bull.
Normally an exceptional performer, Day-Lewis has opted, either through Anderson's direction or of his own accord, to channel John Huston -- and probably Noah Cross in Chinatown -- into his character, speaking with the same educated, growling, snakeskin drawl.
But Anderson overreaches in the movie's lengthy epilogue set in 1927, which seems loosely inspired by "Chinatown."
In Roman Polanski’s Chinatown , detective Jake Gittes became suspicious of a devious California millionaire named Noah Cross, played by the great John Huston.
But Day-Lewis, who seems to have modeled his courtly-demonic vocal drawl here on John Huston's Noah Cross in "Chinatown," is one of the few actors who can infuse a symbolic character with the lifeblood of passionate, lived-in experience.
North by Northwest (1959)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
influenced The Ghost Writer (2010)
Characters Music Plot
Interrogating a retired academic ( Tom Wilkinson , superb) reminiscent of Hitchcock 's tweedy professors in " The 39 Steps " and " North by Northwest ," McGregor's every attempt to unravel a decades-old political plot is checkmated by the kind of politesse that's hardened by an impenetrable, unflappable sense of self.
Still, it's a pleasure to see Ewan McGregor act again after a series of misfires ("The Men Who Star at Goats," "Amelia") and although the film's locations are suspect, the overall production, capped by an Alexander Desplat score that recalls "North by Northwest," has Hitchcockian pleasures.
It's a set-up reminiscent of Hitchcock, say, in North by Northwest.
Side Effects (2013)
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
influenced by Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Themes Characters Plot Visuals
From Soderbergh's head-scratching opening homage to Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby to a plot that, at first, seems to be a cautionary legal tale of big pharma abuses, Side Effects unexpectedly develops into a post modern Hitchcockian thriller... which is actually akin to one of Brian De Palma's chilly psychological puzzles .
He plays games with the color palette and the sound mix; Mara has a spooky, translucent vulnerability that reminded me of Mia Farrow in “Rosemary’s Baby.’’
You’ll also detect echoes of Rosemary’s Baby (questionable psychiatrists involved in Manhattan highrise hijinks) and the 1981 Body Heat (an attractive couple whose passion turns toxic).
The premise is patently yet intriguingly ridiculous—a Manhattan-set psychological thriller that satirizes Big Pharma paranoia, while harking back to such crazy-lady favorites as Rosemary’s Baby and Fatal Attraction.
It’s no coincidence he opens his film with a slow, insinuating zoom into a distant apartment window, like “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Psycho.”
Brick (2006)
Directed by Rian Johnson
influenced by Chinatown (1974)
Characters Plot Visuals Themes Dialogue
Johnson was lucky to land Gordon-Levitt for the role; a veteran of the sitcom 3rd Rock From the Sun, he's proved a formidable dramatic actor in indies like Manic (2001) and Mysterious Skin (2004), and in Brick he holds the screen as powerfully as Jack Nicholson in Chinatown.
Still, the lousy sound and a creeping narrative murk prevent ''Brick" from fully becoming the ''Chinatown" of high school flicks, and the final scenes don't lift off from private-eye cliches so much as cave in to them.
Taking visual cues from Chinatown, gifted DP Steve Yedlin favors shots from below, and stark under-populated exteriors that convey menace even in California sunshine.
It's true that Roman Polanski's "Chinatown," a 1974 neo-noir, was bathed in L.A. sunlight; but that film had an inventively sinister plot, and a dark sexual kink.
In fact, the movie most commonly referenced here is "Chinatown," the Jack Nicholson film that, while certainly noirish, was shot in color and released in 1974.
Brick is what it would have looked like if Bogart went to high school–an adolescent Chinatown with shades of Kurosawa, peppered with the rapid-fire, hard-boiled, cryptic speech of A Clockwork Orange and wrapped in the very deceptive skin of a teen drama.
Where previous Pixar movies have jammed in the pop culture references thick and fast, Inside Out is almost completely stripped of them, so the few that remain — a Chinatown gag, a visual nod to Contact’s intergalactic wormholes, a jellybean-like voice actor in Dream Productions who looks like voice superstar John DiMaggio — really hit home.
Movies with jabs at San Francisco’s new-agey vibe with organic broccoli pizzas and jokes requiring the viewer to know things like the last line of Chinatown (1974) are not entirely aimed at 9-year-olds.
Because the Pixar brain trust (which, besides Docter, includes executive producers Lasseter and Andrew Stanton) is brilliant at story, the saga of "Inside Out" finds room for crisp action, genuine jeopardy, cartoon slapstick, even adult humor like a jest that references "Chinatown."
Almost every scene contains at least two simultaneous gags, one visual, the other verbal (has there ever been another cartoon aimed at children that contained a shout-out to Chinatown?)
When a character in Pixar's Inside Out makes an allusion to "Jake," it jogs the Chinatown core with aplomb.
The jokes flash by at synaptic speed, buoyed by an exuberant score from composer Michael Giacchino (Jurassic World, Up, Rataouille), and with shout-outs to such adult pleasures as the movies Vertigo and Chinatown.
Too bad it gets repetitious, but not in a good way, like, say, Luis Buñuel's The Exterminating Angel.
And strangely—as if the characters were trapped in Luis Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel (1962)—the Cowans appear to be unable to leave the Longstreets’ apartment.
Watching "Carnage," I couldn't help thinking about, in reverse alphabetical order, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," "Six Degrees of Separation," "Lord of the Flies" and "The Exterminating Angel."
As for Polanski, he masterfully orchestrates all the mind-game mayhem — at times, the scenario recalls a more grounded version of Luis Bunuel's surrealist romps The Exterminating Angel and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie — although he above all filmmakers constantly reminds us how important it is to separate the artist's personal life from his public offerings.
Then they have trouble leaving one another's company — any relation to Luis Buñuel's The Exterminating Angel is worth speculating on.
Nothing gives this trick away (the superb if limited production design is by Dean Tavoularis, of "The Godfather" and "Apocalypse Now"), but the awareness of this illusion likely helped the actors embrace the story's absurd theatrical conceit, which merges the verbal sadomasochism of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" with the why-don't- they-just-leave-the-room unreality of Buñuel's "The Exterminating Angel."
Saint Maud (2020)
Directed by Rose Glass
influenced by Repulsion (1965), Rosemary's Baby (1968), Knife in the Water (1962)
Themes Plot Visuals Characters
The second half of the movie tumbles with Maud down a spiral of female solitude and hallucinatory madness that invokes cinematic precedents as varied as Ingmar Bergman’s Persona , Roman Polanski’s Repulsion , and Lynne Ramsay’s Morvern Callar .
If there’s precedent for “Saint Maud,” it would be Roman Polanski’s “Repulsion” (1965), in which Catherine Deneuve goes murderously bonkers over the course of one very long weekend.
A sophisticated creep-fest from debuting feature director Rose Glass, “Maud” owes some debt to the Roman Polanski of “Repulsion” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” to Brian De Palma’s “Carrie” and to the sound design of her own Paul Davies, whose unnerving noise recalls the better contemporary horror films of James Wan (“The Conjuring,” “Insidious”).
It’s a performance that shares DNA with Samantha Morton in Morvern Callar and Catherine Deneuve in Repulsion : bold, uncompromising and vivid.
There are films like Polanski’s 1965 film Repulsion , which take on a more surreal depiction of the effects of loneliness and a woman’s mental state, but Saint Maud is unsettling because of the realistic situations and intense portrayals.
Although its dark, uneasy atmosphere and sometimes gruesome imagery lean in the direction of horror—Roman Polanski's Repulsion is an obvious influence—it is not a full-on horror film itself (apart from one wild jolt toward the end).
Black Swan (2010)
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
influenced by Repulsion (1965), The Tenant (1976), Rosemary's Baby (1968), Knife in the Water (1962)
Visuals Themes Characters
Aronofsky, taking a page from Roman Polanski's blood-chilling Repulsion (1965), signals Nina's fall with subtle cues and gradually pulls us over to the other side of the mirror.
Film buffs will think of many other movies while watching "Black Swan," including the dance masterpiece "The Red Shoes" (1948), Roman Polanski's mental-breakdown showpiece "Repulsion" (1965), Dario Argento's ballet-academy shocker "Suspiria" (1977) and "The Piano Teacher" (2001), with Isabelle Huppert as a sadomasochistic musician.
Much like Catherine Deneuve in Roman Polanksi’s Repulsion, Portman’s primary job is to crack up on camera -- while always mustering a modicum of control.
However, by presenting the action from inside the fractured mind of the lead character, it has generated comparisons to some of Roman Polanski's early work (especially The Tenant and Repulsion).
Natalie Portman’s Oscar-winning performance is central in this regard, just as Catherine Deneuve’s was in Repulsion, as she moves from being a near-child to a possibly murderous psychopath without ever losing our sympathy.
Among them: Roman Polanski's plunge into female hysteria, "Repulsion"; Joseph L. Mankiewicz's "All About Eve"; and Aronofsky's own performance drama, "The Wrestler."
In the “lurid” realm, Roman Polanski's "Repulsion" is another reference point for "The Swerve," where Catherine Deneuve's submissive character deteriorates rapidly when left alone in the apartment over a long weekend.
The physical environment around Holly also shows signs of deterioration, such as the image above depicting when she checks her teacher’s mailbox at school and the nearby wall is split— reminiscent of Repulsion and the psychological cracks in the apartment of Catherine Deneuve’s protagonist.
The borders between her reality and her nightmares start to become distressingly fuzzy, but The Swerve isn’t really the story of an unreliable protagonist who is (maybe) losing her mind, in the vein of Repulsion (1965), Perfect Blue (1997), or Black Swan (2010).
Like the classic Roman Polanski film “Repulsion” (1965), the horror is strictly psychological.
The bar has been raised so high after harrowing experiences of seeing something like Polanski’s Repulsion or Bergman’s Persona .
Still, in aspiring to match the thrillers of Frankenheimer and Hitchcock (and Polanski’s Hitchcock homage Frantic), Unknown mostly lacks the grindhouse energy fans of Taken might come expecting; they may find the picture a little too tasteful in the hands of director Jaume Collet-Serra (Orphan) and as adapted by Oliver Butcher and Stephen Cornwell from Didier Van Cauwelaert’s novel (a.k.a.
I was reminded of Roman Polanski's " Frantic " (1988), in which Harrison Ford played a doctor attending a convention in Paris with his wife.
For those of you who missed Roman Polanski's under-appreciated 1988 Harrison Ford thriller, "Frantic", do yourselves a favor and rent (or stream) it from Netflix rather than running out to see "Unknown", the latest version of the American-caught-in-a-foreign-city formula.
And, perhaps, we're walking in the footsteps of Roman Polanski and his 1988 thriller Frantic -- also about an American on business in a European city (Harrison Ford), who finds himself in the centre of a conspiracy.
2. Ford's a good analogy, because Neeson's new film "Unknown" is basically a worse, more ludicrous, glossed-up version of Ford's "Frantic," directed by Roman Polanski in 1988.
(And if it's too on-the-nose for you, maybe you can impress your friends by spotting the Rosemary's Baby nod that happens elsewhere.)
In some ways this is just a creepier, slightly funnier horror-pic spoof than anything in the recently resurrected “Scary Movie” franchise; along with its references to “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Exorcist,” the film spends a considerable amount of time elucidating prophecies in the book of Revelation, often with an impressively straight face.
And just when things start to drag a little, This Is the End pays vulgar homage to Rosemary’s Baby and the monsters arrive, leading to situations such as a gross-out soccer game with a severed head.
If Rogen and Goldberg want a hit as big as “Ghostbusters” (another film, along with “The Exorcist” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” that this one borrows from), they should remember that the Bill Murray comedy didn’t keep putting the plot on hold for long stretches of improv.
I will note, however, that the film's ripoff of the demonic impregnation scene in Rosemary's Baby is considerably more horrifying than the original.
The obvious nods to " The Exorcist " and "Rosemary's Baby" co-exist with a hilarious examination of the familiar dynamics of a group of friends.