Though "Rosemary's
Baby" remains Roman Polanski's classic horror film, for psychological terror,
hysterical paranoia, existential break-down and a man in a dress, "The Tenant"
supersedes "Rosemary" in genuine horror. Polanski cast himself as Trelkovsky, a
... morebeleaguered, nervous Polish file clerk who takes an apartment after the previous
tenant commits suicide. His neighbors are all kinds of creepy (gotta love a
thoroughly disagreeable Shelley Winters), he's seeing strange things in the
bathroom across the courtyard and, in one of the picture's more memorable
moments, he's found a tooth in the wall. Yes, a tooth. And it's scary. Worse,
for reasons we can only surmise as ghostly and psychotic, he begins dressing in
the prior tenant's clothes, including a dress, wig and a thick smear of
lipstick. When he jumps out of the window, not once, but twice in this get-up we
are both horrified and humored – a tough combination to successfully convey, but
Polanski, master of the dark humor, does so effortlessly. For instance, watch
Polanski smack a kid in the park, or observe an especially frightening and
imaginative moment when Polanski's head is bouncing like a basketball, and feel
confused by your horrified bemusement. Try not to laugh. And then cringe. A
Dostoyevskian inspired tale, "The Tenant" is supremely creepy, philosophically
fascinating, funny and daring. Close
