Apartment 7A (2024)

Score: 2 / 5

Making a prequel to a beloved -- rightly so -- classic is always a dangerous game. Some meet with great success, such as The First Omen from earlier this very year, in harnessing the power of the original and offering a fresh new dynamic that leads into the material. It's not just horror, as of course Rogue One exemplifies as a personal favorite example, but horror does tend to make things more difficult. After all, a scary premise loses its scariness after repeated viewings, doesn't it?

Or does it? Rosemary's Baby, to be fair, has translated from novel to feature film to television with aplomb; even if nothing has quite matched Polanski's psychologically devastating portrayal of a woman succumbing to demons in her home and demons in her womb, the story is still being re-adapted: notably, the recent contemporization of the story in Danielle Valentine's Delicate Condition found its way concurrently to the most recent season of American Horror Story, a redundant misstep for the show that nevertheless underscored today's anxieties about women's right to self-determining healthcare.

Natalie Erika James's Apartment 7A enters the mess of Rosemary-adjacent media via Paramount+, and while it's a diverting not-quite-two-hours, it leaves too much to be desired. Taking as its premise the experience of Terry Gionoffrio in the brief time before she dies (an inciting incident of Rosemary's Baby), we're introduced to Julia Garner's character as a troubled wannabe Broadway star. During a performance of Kiss Me, Kate, chorus dancer Terry breaks her ankle, causing the show to stop and her name to be blacklisted. After an audition with a producer (Jim Sturgess) who in the later 2010s would have been disgraced by the #MeToo movement, she moves into the Bramford apartment building where he lives, ushered in by the kindly, elderly Castevet couple, Roman and Minnie.

To say more wouldn't be to spoil the plot, as the plot has already been spoiled. Apartment 7A is just a retelling of Rosemary's Baby, suggesting that the cult of demonic worshippers in New York City and particularly the Bramford have been trying repeatedly, using the same tactics, to breed a demon with an unwitting woman to procure an antichrist. One would hope that, like audiences over the past five decades, storytellers also evolve, but that is not the case here. While the production design gorgeously captures the '60s ambiance, the story and screenplay by the director and Skylar James never manages to do anything interesting with the period, characters, or variations on theming. It's just more of the same, and while longtime fans might find that a pleasant diversion, a diversion it nevertheless remains.

Thankfully, it's not all dull in this holding pattern, and a few notable elements are perhaps worth the watch. First, as mentioned, the production design is sumptuous, transporting us from our home screens to an elegantly realized Bramford. One of the most effective scenes in the film is the sequence of Terry auditioning for her diabolical producer on her injured ankle, and the authenticity of this abuse almost made me pause the film to go take some calming drugs and brew some tea. Later, the film bubbles with energy anytime the Castavets grace the scene. Played by Kevin McNally and a truly delightful Dianne Wiest, they could be reincarnations of the original performers of these characters. Some may decry mimicry in acting, but Wiest has proven herself a capable actress in her own right; this is the first time I can recall seeing her doing something like an impression, and it rocks. She is firing on all fronts, and camp as it is, it's chillingly effective. Her parodic impersonation won't land with everyone, but anyone familiar with her work will appreciate it as something wholly different and weird for her to sharing with us. I loved it, grating and icky as it is.

Since we know so well Terry's fate, the whole film casts a sort of pall over itself, sapping the joy out of small moments of potential reprieve from the psychological strain. The cinematography rarely does much of interest, rendering the Bramford much less interesting, visually, than it should given its detailed mise-en-scene. And psychologically, the film fails repeatedly, resorting to a couple jump scares to make it a "horror movie"; the original thematic element of Rosemary being gaslit by her husband and tormented by her neighbors is all but gone here, making the question of Terry's clunky spiral into paranoia and insanity less a question of what's being done to her and more a question of what's wrong with her herself. Is she a Black Swan-type obsessed dancer who would be crazy regardless of cult machinations?

Garner and Wiest are definitely worth a watch, and if you like the '60s or simply the atmosphere of Polanski's film, this is worth a watch. I personally really liked the way they depicted the demon-impregnator figure (whatever it really is, we may never know), but I won't spoil that reveal here. But the story, haphazard direction, and lack of thematic conceit makes the whole thing an irritating disappointment.