Mina Productions present Rita Dominic (Rose), John Dumelo (George), Desmond Elliott (Paul), Screenplay, Mina Christine; Director of Photography, Joseph Oladunjoye; Director, Desmond Elliott; Producer, Mina Christine. (c) 2014.
If a movie title ever puts the goddamn fear in you, Rosemary’s Baby (1968) will be it. And if a title of a movie today half comes close to Rosemary’s Baby, Rosemary’s Fight does, though, in title only. Rosemary’s Baby is all in a class by itself. Imagine a young man sells the well-being of his wife and a newborn to Satanic cult and devil worshiping so that he makes a break in show business.
Have we not had such stories from Nollywood yet? We were close to it with Figurine (2009). However, Ramsey Noah and his partner didn’t go looking for a cult but accidentally discovered it. Secondly, there has never been a curse following the crew and actors after the production of Figurine as Rosemary’s Baby. Rosemary’s Baby is the only film ever produced in Hollywood that spooks the industry to this day. Any title that starts with ‘Rosemary…’ in Hollywood is an anathema.
Almost all and everybody that was ever connected with the production of Rosemary’s Baby had met with unexplained tragedy: “Rosemary, for God’s sake, drop the knife,” yelled William Castle, film’s producer on his dying bed, as he felt the excruciating and stabbing pain in his stomach. Polanski’s wife, pregnant with his eight-month-old Baby, was killed with the screenwriter and other friends in a gruesome mass murder and drank their blood, ordered by Charles Manson. Hollywood claimed Roman Polanski had a compact with the devil to make him famous. John Lennon was shot right outside the door of the film’s primary location.
Why am I going south with this? It’s in the name: ‘Rosemary.’ It’s a psychological and supernatural horror film that will keep every viewer spooked. When I saw the Rosemary title, I proclaimed. Finally, Nollywood is producing its version of Hollywood’ Rosemary.’ No, I am wrong. Rosemary’s Fight is the nasty marital Fight between Rose (Rita Dominic) and George (John Dumelo). In the end, Rose files for divorce get most of the properties and the mansion. No devil worshiping. No killings.
I thought Dr. Manuel was better than John Jumo in A Northern Affair. Boy, was I wrong? Maybe it’s the demand of the script that creates awfulness in him. He gets out of his gentlemanly shell here and gives Rose a whipping. He punches, slaps, and she falls, drags her on the floor. All along, she’s laughing the kind of laughter that transcends anger and desperation. George gives it to her like when a man has had enough of a bad day with a boss at work and comes home to a taunting and oppressive wife. It wasn’t so. He is his boss.
George acts like a man empty or devoid of self-confidence. His wife mustn’t have friends, mustn’t take work. Must only stay home, watch television, cook, and occasionally open the window blind and peep outside at the crazy world waiting to devour her. I don’t blame him; having such a sumptuous wife as Rose makes a man desirable and insecure, for any man laying eyes on her must imagine carnal pleasures. Every man wants to stick it to her! At least that’s what he thought.
When I see him dragging Rose on the floor, and with the images of devil worshiping in Rosemary’s Baby lingering in my mind, I assume the demon has got the better of George. He’s going to drag her, shove her alive in a two-by-four freezer and lock it up, and he’ll later bury her limp body in the middle of their living room at midnight. And every year, at midnight on Halloween, we will hear Rose’s wail from within the halls of that mansion, and Rose’s ghost would rise, and roam the earth, and haunt everyone and all those associated with the production of Rosemary’s Fight.
One Nollywood actress I admire is Rita. She radiates the screen and has an aura that takes up the whole story. You can see how she gingerly walks on the set the first time. I mean from upstairs on her way to work in the morning, full of life, with a smile and wittiness hardly seen in Nollywood. In Rosemary’s Fight, she narrates her marital relationship with George, her husband, in a voice-over from her point of view. She invites us into her world and shares with us, though sparingly, the gruesome treatment she receives at home. Personally, George’s treatment of such a luscious woman angered me.
However, like all relationships, this one isn’t devoid of outside influences. Rose’s friends want her divorce, a wife-beating husband, and dismiss him as a douchebag. And she, by accident, runs into Charles, “Call me Charley,” he introduces himself. You can remember the incident in Stolen Love (2016) when Jim Iyke rescues Rita Dominic rescues from hoodlums and ends up dating him. Well, they replicate the same scene or incident here, and he turns out to be her sidekick in getting rid of her husband. Exciting entertainment for Sunday evenings,