We saw the trailer for Apartment 7A the other day, it’s basically the prequel to Rosemary’s Baby. I thought the trailer looked OK so I put it on last night. In a nutshell, it was a waste of everyone’s time and money, including mine.
Apartment 7A stars Julia Garner, Dianne Wiest, Kevin McNally, Jim Sturgess, Marli Siu, Rosy McEwen, Tina Grey and Andrew Buchan. Natalie Erika James directs and writes, with Christian White and Skylar James co-writing.
The Story
As I said, you know the story. It’s a prequel to Rosemary’s Baby. I’m going to start off by saying I have seen the original and I remember it being very good. I can’t remember much of the details though, just that it was a classic horror.
The story for Apartment 7A is:
A struggling dancer finds herself drawn into dark forces by a peculiar couple promising her fame.
A young girl is being groomed into something ‘dark and evil’. Off the top of my head both Immaculate and The First Omen sprang to mind, plus countless others.
Terry (Garner) is a promising dancer until she breaks her ankle. This then turns her into some form of cripple, who hobbles down the street like the Penguin. Well, apart from when she needs to dance at auditions, then she’s perfectly OK.
She’s bunking at a friend’s apartment, bills are due and she’s out of money and time. After another failed audition, she meets Minnie (Wiest) and Roman (McNally). They take her in and look after her like the daughter they never had.
Things start getting weird and I’ll spoil the ending. I’m doing you a favor here as Apartment 7A is not worth sitting through.
*Spoilers*
The problem with Apartment 7A is Rosemary’s Baby exists. Young Terry is being groomed to give birth to the devil, or the antichrist, or someone who’s very anti-Jesus. She does get pregnant and is going to give birth.
However, we know this isn’t going to happen because this is what happens in Rosemary’s Baby. At the end, you think Terry has given in and accepted her fate, but no, she throws herself out of a window and dies before the baby is born.
There was no other way for the movie to end. In fact, during the closing credits, you see the back of Rosemary’s head, and Minnie and Roman head over to her. This is what’s wrong with a prequel, you know the outcome so there are no stakes.
I pretty much knew Terry was going to have to die about halfway through. From that point, I lost interest and did some online shopping. Speaking of which, can anyone recommend a good gaming/office chair? I don’t want leather, but a good-sized fabric one, thanks.
The Cast
Apartment 7A is one of those movies that I feel bad for everyone. The cast is good, the actor is good, the direction is good, but overall, it’s a waste of everyone’s time and money.
Garner is watchable, although her character isn’t all that engaging. You feel sorry for Terry, she’s got it tough, but that’s about it. The rest of the decisions she makes are just to help the plot move forward.
As I said, I’m not all that familiar with the original, but Wiest and McNally are great. Wiest’s character is just as you expect an annoying old busy-body neighbor to be. Stupidly, I couldn’t place McNally, until I realized it was Gibbs from Pirates of the Caribbean.
The rest of the cast do their job, but nothing worth mentioning.
Overall
As a stand-alone movie, Apartment 7A would have been a mildly entertaining horror. The production was pretty good, the acting did the job, it’s mildly creepy in places and the story isn’t terrible.
However, like I said in my review of The First Omen, Apartment 7A is a terrible prequel to Rosemary’s Baby. All of the tension is removed as you know where the story is going to end. It’s trading off the coattails of a classic horror movie.
Sure, some of the details are well done. I’m sure if I watched Rosemary’s Baby again, I would see how the sets are good, the feeling is good and it’s probably a good homage to the original.
It’s just the story that lets it down. We know what’s going to happen, so we don’t care.
Don’t bother watching Apartment 7A, just watch Rosemary’s Baby again, that’s what I should have done.
