Welcome to Knockout Horror. For day 14 of our 31 Days of Halloween 2024 feature we are finding the answers to a question that nobody ever asked as we review Rosemary’s Baby prequel Apartment 7A. 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 Castevet’s when Rosemary moved in to the Bramford’s Apartments?”? I know that I didn’t.
Did We Need This?
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?
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.
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 that 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. 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 awhile. 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 simply awful. 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.
Should You Watch Apartment 7A?
Unless you are desperate for more content from the Rosemary’s Baby world or haven’t seen the original, you shouldn’t watch Apartment 7A. 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 from its inspiration title. Apartment 7A is a movie with little to offer. Some may enjoy it but I can’t help but think that some of the positive user reviews are purely due to people being contrarians. Nobody asked for this movie and the horror world doesn’t need it.