Shock Value - Jason Zinoman [6]
Once Castle started making his way through the first few chapters, however, he recognized that this was also slick, hard-driving storytelling. He was also impressed with how Levin rooted his tale in the real world of contemporary Manhattan. It was about issues that people could relate to—the nervousness of entering the real estate market; struggling in a faltering, sexless marriage; and the yearning, desperate search for fame. The book puts you in the position of Rosemary imagining what it’s like to become isolated from your spouse, the world, and, possibly, your sanity. Levin was also playing on anxieties that ordinary people understand: meddling neighbors, doctors with all the answers, and the frightening uncertainties of your first pregnancy. At the heart is a joke that even critics would appreciate: Rosemary’s husband, an actor, sold their child to Satan in exchange for a role in a Broadway show.
It was also clear that this was a book that could turn into a film very easily. The novel was mostly dialogue. Castle began putting the pieces together in his head. His friend Vincent Price would star as the creepy neighbor who sells Rosemary’s husband on the plan. That would bring in the horror crowd. The rest of the cast could be filled out with younger actors to appeal to kids. Put the whole thing in 3-D and it would be huge. He saw only one problem: the Catholics would go berserk. The film was after all about a sympathetic believer who lost her faith, moved to New York, gave birth to the Devil, and then learned to make the best of it. And she’s the hero! Castle’s wife, whom he trusted, read the script and told him he was going to have push-back from the Church. Then again, controversy sells. “Even if they ban it,” he told his wife, “Catholics will go.”
Only one day earlier, when the galleys first crossed his desk, Castle had passed on it right away. “Rosemary’s Baby is not for me,” he told the agent over the phone. “The bottom has dropped out of horror films.” Recent box office numbers backed him up. Only a handful of major new horror movies opened in 1967. With the exception of Wait Until Dark, a thriller that benefited from the buzz produced by its star Audrey Hepburn, they were all disappointments. Hammer Productions, the English company that revived interest in the old gothic standbys Dracula and Frankenstein, was running out of ideas, producing a flop in Frankenstein Created Woman, the fourth in its series starring Peter Cushing. Castle’s The Spirit Is Willing, a ghost story starring Sid Caesar, could have been made in the thirties. The most interesting new spin on the old formula that year might have been The Fearless Vampire Killers, an uneven and slowly paced spoof of Hammer films by a young director named Roman Polanski. Despite compelling camerawork, the movie never struck the right balance of laughs to scares, baffling audiences looking for comedy and horror.
Castle lost money in 1966 on Let’s Kill Uncle, a silly series of scares set on an island where a broken-down haunted house sits next to a pool filled with sharks. Of the four proposed endings, Castle chose the most nonsensical one where the murderous uncle develops a heart. While he was known for advertising campaigns that sold outrageousness, he never really planned on delivering it. When it came to his movies, Castle was happy right behind the curve. He was a master thief with a knack for picking which houses to break into. They were usually the ones built by Alfred Hitchcock. Castle directed, but his genius was in promotion. He took out an insurance policy at Lloyds of London for $1,000 for any audience member who died of fright at his 1958 revenge film Macabre. The next year, he jerry-rigged buzzers to the seats that would vibrate during scare sequences in The Tingler, a monster movie about creatures who live inside our bodies that