‘Apartment 7A’ Movie Review [Fantastic Fest 2024]: Natalie Erika James’ ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ Prequel Doesn’t Have Much to Add

Photo from Gareth Gatrell/Paramount+

From Jeff Nelson

Rosemary’s Baby (1968) is one of the greatest psychological horror films ever to grace the silver screen, which spawned an equally atrocious TV movie sequel called Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby (1976) and a re-adaptation of Ira Levin’s original novel in the form of a mini-series. Director/co-screenwriter Natalie Erika James expands on the franchise with a prequel titled Apartment 7A that doesn’t push the envelope far enough, which is a shame after experiencing her refreshingly moody feature debut, Relic (2020).

Terry Gionoffrio (Julia Garner) is a small-town girl with larger-than-life aspirations to see her name in lights as a dancer. She coincidentally meets a peculiar elderly couple named Minnie (Dianne West) and Roman (Kevin McNally), who offer to help her until she can get back on her feet after a potentially career-ending mishap. However, their kindness doesn’t come without a price.

The movie is set in 1965 New York City, which places it soon before Rosemary and Guy move into the ornate Bramford apartment building. You might remember Terry (initially played by Victoria Vetri) as a recovering drug addict under Minnie and Roman’s care in Roman Polanski’s classic. Apartment 7A tells her story, where a painful injury thwarts her Broadway dancing dreams. From her Nebraskan family’s slaughterhouse to the dog-eat-dog streets of New York City, she finally makes a name for herself. But, her infamous impairment sticks with her through auditions and peer interactions until she follows a successful Broadway producer, Alan Marchand (Jim Sturgess), to his home at the Bramford, where she meets Minnie and Roman.

Terry’s dark world initially glows brighter, between her dreamy Bramford apartment at no cost and a path to her greatest dreams. However, it all dissolves into a horrific nightmare filled with personal and literal demons after a night she can’t remember. Unless you’re going into Apartment 7A without knowledge of Rosemary’s Baby, there aren’t any surprises here. It plays as a mix between the 1968 masterpiece and a generic, straight-to-Netflix supernatural thriller. The scares are ineffective and we’re already aware of its mysteries, making most of it feel like fluff.

James invokes the occasional creepy image, but it doesn’t come close to the haunting quality seen in Relic. Garner does some heavy lifting as Terry, especially in the scenes where the screenplay James co-wrote with Christian White and Skylar James allows the character to speak on the painful past that drives her.

Apartment 7A does the bare minimum when it comes to scares, thrills, and building upon the world of a beloved horror classic. It doesn’t really add anything new, despite deciding to explore a character we already know. Ignore that it’s a part of the Rosemary’s Baby universe and what remains is fairly generic genre fare. It isn’t bad, but it falls short of what audiences expect from the franchise and what we know this filmmaker is capable of. In the same year we got Arkasha Stevenson’s solid The First Omen, prequel to 1976’s The Omen, it’s even more apparent that Apartment 7A plays it way too safe.

Rating: 2.5/5

Apartment 7A played at Fantastic Fest 2024 on September 20th, 2024. It streams on Paramount+ and is available to purchase on digital platforms beginning September 27th, 2024.

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