Apartment 7A (2024) Review: Despite Julia Garner and Dianne Wiest’s Solid Performances, This Rosemary’s Baby Prequel is More of an Unnecessary Filler
Is Apartment 7A, the direct prequel to Roman Polanski’s 1968 horror classic Rosemary’s Baby necessary? It would be if the prequel delves deeper into the odd, too-good-to-be-friendly old couple of the Castevets, Roman and Minnie, who are the members of the coven. But instead of focusing on the potentially intriguing backstory related to Castevets and the dark history of the Bramford brownstone, the prequel chooses to pivot to Terry Gionoffrio. She was the minor character in Rosemary’s Baby played by Victoria Vetri but credited in the movie as Angela Dorian.
To refresh your memory, she was last seen talking to Rosemary (Mia Farrow) in the basement laundry room, only to subsequently end up dead under mysterious circumstances one night. How Terry’s death happened was never explained. At least, explicitly speaking and that’s where Natalie Erika James, who is no stranger to atmospheric slow-burn horror in 2010’s Relic, comes in. Apartment 7A supposedly marks her highly-anticipated sophomore effort and for a while there, the movie seems potential. James, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Christian White and Skylar James, traces back to Terry’s (Julia Garner) beginning way before she met Rosemary.
Taking place in 1965, we learn that Terry’s an aspiring dancer looking for a big break but unfortunately ends up with a terrible accident when she lands awkwardly during a show. With one of her ankles badly injured and even after recovery, she still has to limp when walking. She has since addicted to painkillers and is jobless, relying on her friend and roommate Annie (Marli Siu) to tide her over and shelter her. But Terry’s passion for dancing remains strong and her never-give-up attitude prompted her to go for as many auditions. She faces countless rejections during her multiple trials. At one point, there’s an audition where she is being bullied into performing the same dance step on stage over and over again. Julia Garner, best known for her role in TV’s Ozark and the powerful #MeToo workplace drama The Assistant, certainly gives her all in her committed performance as the struggling Terry.
But once the story gets underway with the introduction of the elderly Castevets, Minnie (Dianne Wiest) and Roman (Kevin McNally), it all feels like a deja vu experience. Don’t get me wrong as McNally and particularly, Wiest deliver strong supporting roles while Natalie Erika James knows how to build a foreboding sense of dread from the moment Terry agrees to live in one of the apartments in the Bramford owned by the Castevets.
And yet, here lies the prequel’s biggest problem: James slavishly rehashes the same tone and style that has already been explored in Rosemary’s Baby. Except for Garner’s Terry character not being as similarly meek as Mia Farrow’s Rosemary, James seems to be overly dependent on the formula like Terry relying on painkillers. This, in turn, limits her creativity stuck within the small circle. From the scene of Terry receiving a gift containing a so-called good luck charm necklace that has the peculiar smell of tannis root to the drug-induced hallucinatory ritual, it looks as if James tries to either match or outdo Polanski’s original but only achieves less than the sum of its parts.
It’s a pity because I enjoy Garner and Wiest’s above-average performances in Apartment 7A but ultimately hampered by a been-there, done-that screenplay and James’ surprisingly lacklustre direction, especially given how much potential she had in her feature debut. Fans of Rosemary’s Baby might find this more of a filler trying to cash in the nostalgia factor of a horror classic. Even without comparing this to the original movie, Apartment 7A is sadly a missed opportunity that is neither scary nor engrossing enough to justify the existence of this prequel.
Apartment 7A is currently streaming on Paramount+.
