Apartment 7A (2024) review – A Pointless And Derivative Prequel To A Horror Classic

Welcome to Knockout Horror. Today we are reviewing the answer to a question that nobody ever asked with Rosemary’s Baby prequel Apartment 7A.

Did we need a prequel to Rosemary’s Baby?

Directed by Relic director Natalie Erika James, I’m really not sure why this movie exists. It seems as though some people get a bit upset when you say that but it is true. Did anyone really ever ask the question “What’s the deal with the woman who lived with the Castevets when Rosemary moved into the Bramford Apartments?”? I know that I didn’t.

“It’s a slow, derivative, plodding, meandering look at failed dancer Terry Gionoffrio — the woman who lived with Minnie and Roman Castevet at the start of Rosemary’s Baby.”

That’s what Apartment 7A is, though. It’s a slow, derivative, plodding, meandering look at failed dancer Terry Gionoffrio – the woman who lived with Minnie and Roman Castevet at the start of Rosemary’s Baby. We don’t know much about her in the original movie; she just seems like a street-smart girl who fell on hard times due to drug addiction and was taken in by the quirky couple from the other apartment.

To be honest, we didn’t need to know much. She was only there to provide exposition on the strange elderly couple through her writings. Natalie James has been tasked with bringing her to life, all the while playing everyone’s favourite greatest hits from Rosemary’s Baby itself.

The story follows the blueprint of Terry’s story in the first movie. Only she isn’t street-smart and is far more of a shrinking violet who developed a painkiller addiction due to a dancing-related leg injury. Apparently we have to sympathise with her so her situation has to be pitiful rather than “she was abused and developed a drug addiction due to the lack of a support network.” Apparently that isn’t a relatable scenario.

Anyways, Terry moves in with the Castevets and everything starts looking up for her. She gets the parts she always wanted and she starts moving in high-ranking circles. It occurs to her, however, that everything isn’t quite as it seems. Could it have something to do with the Castevets themselves?

It’s just playing the hits

Apartment 7A doesn’t lovingly pay tribute to Rosemary’s Baby, it outright copies it. Everything is here but contained into one character rather than a few. If you could take Rosemary’s suspicion and paranoia and combine it with the big breaks her husband was getting, you would have Apartment 7A, only without the subtlety and nuanced character presentations.

“Apartment 7A doesn’t lovingly pay tribute to Rosemary’s Baby, it outright copies it. Everything is here but contained into one character rather than a few.”

We have a redux of the Satan-impregnating-Rosemary scene, only with a very PG-13 approach and a dance number to keep it lively. We have Terry finding books exposing the Satanic rituals that are taking place. And we even have a final scene that is horribly reminiscent of the final scene in the original film – only sans baby. Not that that matters because the characters nonsensically act as if the baby is sitting there with them.

There isn’t a lick of innovation in the entire movie outside of the bizarre dance scenes and awkward moments of singing that pop up randomly. The biggest issue of all is that it is just so damn boring. It is really hard to care about Terry. She isn’t an interesting character and character choices have been made that make her even more boring than she should be. What happened to the streetwise girl from the original? Who is this sappy and annoying Terry that graces our screen in Apartment 7A?

Doesn’t really work

It all feels very redundant and a bit pointless. The story simply isn’t that interesting and it all moves at a glacial pace. We know what happens to Terry meaning it is already a predictable movie. But when James consistently resorts to recycling things from the original, it becomes an exercise in frustration and repetition. It really doesn’t help that this movie features mountains of exposition. I get it, the current generation of movie-goers aren’t as keen on subtlety and prefer having things explained. But it is to a ridiculous degree here. Everything is so blatantly and obviously pointed out that it feels like a story aimed at children.

Don’t get me wrong, some people are going to enjoy this. Non-horror fans might like the slow story. People who haven’t seen Rosemary’s Baby might appreciate it as a singular, disconnected movie. Others might like the quirkiness. For me, none of it worked all that well at all. If slow-motion dancing, characters gyrating about with no music playing like a marionette, and clumsily choreographed, Broadway-esque set-pieces are the mark of a good movie, Apartment 7A is one of the best.

I have a horrible feeling in my gut that this movie is setting us up for a remake of the original Rosemary’s Baby. That’s something I would never want to see with such a bland director at the helm. James is all too willing to build a movie up around generic horror dullness before throwing in a few weird visuals to make it seem a bit more unique. She did the exact same thing with the aforementioned Relic.

Mixed acting and a terrible script

Acting isn’t great. Kevin McNally is spot-on as Roman Castevet, almost insanely so, but Roman’s character lacks all the charm and charisma of the original. Julia Garner is the acting equivalent of wholemeal bread here — so bland that it barely deserves comment. She really can’t dance, either, which is a big problem when she is playing a dancer. She is incredibly wooden in movement and her facial expressions are terrible. Dianne Wiest hams it up to a ridiculous degree as Minnie Castevet. Her accent was so overdone that it became like nails on a chalkboard after a while. Jim Sturgess is… there. That’s about all I can say.

Every character plays like a caricature and a lot of that is down to the script. The screenplay is ludicrously bad. Some of the dialogue will have you gritting your teeth with cringe. It took three people working together to barf this crap out. I can only imagine they barely communicated with each other while doing it as it is simply awful.

“It’s a heartless cash-in on a beloved horror classic with very little to offer. Terribly scripted, slow, dull, repetitive, and full of stolen moments.”

Despite the slow plot, it feels, very much, like the ending was rushed. Even that ending, knowing full well what happens to Terry in the original, is full of plot holes. Something that the movie has in spades. It’s a bit disappointing that the writers couldn’t even get that right.

Our Scoring Philosophy: A Fair Fight

Horror is a genre that thrives thanks to indie film makers and low budget creators. At Knockout Horror, we firmly believe that every movie that we review deserves a fair fight. That's why we grade on a curve. Our star ratings are all about context, judging a film on what it achieves with the resources it has.

A 4-star rating for a scrappy indie horror made for $10,000 is a testament to its ingenuity and raw power. A 4-star rating for a $100 million blockbuster means it delivered on its epic promises. We don't compare them side-by-side; we celebrate success in every weight class, from the back-alley brawler to the heavyweight champion. Please keep this in mind when considering star ratings.

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