Fantastic Fest 2024: Apartment 7A Review

Directed by: Natalie Erika James
Written by: Natalie Erika James, Christian White and Skylar James

Starring:
Julia Garner – Terry Gionoffrio
Dianne Wiest – Minnie Castevet
Kevin McNally – Roman Castevet
Jim Sturgess – Alan Marchand
Marli Siu – Annie Leung
Rosy McEwen – Vera Clarke
Andrew Buchan – Leo Watts
Kobna Holdbrook-Smith – BJ
Tina Gray – Mrs. Gardenia

Image Credit: Paramount+

Running Time: 105 minutes
Rated R for some violent content and drug use.

You have to respect the audacity required to try and make a prequel to Rosemary’s Baby. That’s not intended to be a back-handed compliment; I mean it with full sincerity. Its highly problematic director aside, the 1968 psychological horror film is more or less a perfect movie and one of the greatest horror films ever made. It helped turn Mia Farrow into a star and carved Ruth Gordon’s name into cinematic history. Frankly, trying to explore the events before that film seems like folly.

And yet, in some ways that’s exactly the kind of fearlessness that creates a great filmmaker. And if anyone could deliver a worthy prequel to the original, it would probably be Natalie Erika James. James’ Relic was one of 2020’s best films and provided knockout roles for a trio of wonderful actors. She again gives her cast room to shine in Apartment 7A, which premiered at Fantastic Fest on Friday and arrives on Paramount+ next Friday, though the audacity falters when it’s time for the film to walk its own path.

Set a year before Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse arrive on the scene, Apartment 7A centers on Terry (Julia Garner), an actress and dancer on the rocks. As the film opens, Terry suffers a debilitating injury on stage that has left her ankle shattered and her career in shambles. Bills are piling up, she’s coming up dry in auditions, and the goodwill of one of her roommates is running out.

Her problems culminate in a brutal audition for a new staging of The Pale Crook, where she stands up for herself to producer Alan Marchand (Sturgess) and impresses him. Undaunted, she follows him home to the grand Bramford Apartments, where she falls ill and is taken in by building owners Minnie and Roman Castevet (Dianne Wiest & Kevin McNally). The next morning, the Castevets strike up a friendship with Terry and offer her a place to stay in the building.

Things take an upturn for Terry from there; her injury improves thanks to a poultice from a neighbor and she gets to meet with Alan. That meeting turns traumatic however, as she falls ill again and has a dream of being assaulted. The next day she has a part in the play, and she tries to brush off what happened to her. But the longer she stays at the Bramford and the more she lets Minnie and Roman into her life, the more she starts to see and experience things that suggest she may be a pawn in something quite dark and dangerous for her.

Anyone familiar with Rosemary’s Baby will find several elements in that plot summary familiar. It’s no spoiler to say that the Castevets are not the angels they appear to be, nor is the Bramford a place that is safe for young women. Terry is of course a minor character in the original film and the novel that serves as its source material.

That’s an automatic hurdle that James and Christian White, who co-wrote the film from an earlier draft by Skylar James, must deal with. Most audiences coming into Apartment 7A will be well aware of where all of these characters end up at the start of Rosemary’s Baby, and the film’s challenge is to find a way to overcome that intrinsic handicap and get us invested the journey.

Its not-so-secret weapon in that challenge is Garner, who gives her all in making Terry a compelling protagonist. She captures little nuances and inflections that make Terry someone we want to root for, saying plenty with every gesture and pause. Terry gets put through the wringer, and Garner finds the balance of vulnerability and steel that makes us want her to follow her story.

Wiest and McNally have a trickier job in embodying characters who are more prominent in the original film. Wiest in particular is following in the footsteps of an iconic performance, but she’s a veteran actress who captures Ruth Gordon’s famous vocal choices while still giving her own take. Her Minnie is as charming as Gordon’s, but she adds a level of menace at times that gives the character a new element. McNally’s performance is a bit more restrained but he matches up well with Weist and looms as a presence in the background.

The aspect most weighing Apartment 7A down is, predictably, the legacy of what came before (or narratively after) it. Again, we already know what’s going to happen to all these characters, at least to some degree. James and White’s script seems at times to be too reverent to the original story, and swaths of the film feel like a remake of Rosemary’s Baby. It’s not hard to guess what’s going to happen to Terry, and the plot beats often hew too closely to those expectations.

That said, there are times where the script makes diversions. Terry is not a major presence in the original film, and there are a few small tweaks to better fit what is being envisioned here. Better yet, they don’t necessarily contradict Rosemary canon since the residents of the Bramford aren’t exactly the most reliable narrators. The fleshing out of Terry’s character is where the script works best, helped along by Garner’s work in the role; too much of the rest just feels like a re-do and while there’s something to be said about the perpetuating cycle of abuse, it doesn’t dig deep enough into that.

On the other hand, James is doing fine work behind the camera as she explores the nooks and crannies of the Bramford and its residents. Her standout work is how she focuses on Garner, wedding a bit of Black Swan dance horror into Terry’s story. Terry’s visions of her assault transport her to the stage in a trippily horrifying sequence, and James relies on tension and mood to keep the viewer on edge (although there are a few jump scares, moderately effective).

The ultimate question surrounding Apartment 7A is how well it can exist under the weight of expectations set by its predecessor. It wouldn’t be accurate to say that James is making a film that meets the impossibly high marks set for it, and it’s likely that audiences will hold that against it. But importantly, it can stand on its own without audiences having seen Rosemary’s Baby, which is frankly necessary considering the complicated feelings many have around consuming media created by Roman Polanski. And at the very least, it doesn’t do anything to drag Rosemary down, which is a feat in and of itself.

Fantastic Fest takes place in Austin, Texas from September 19th through the 26th. Apartment 7A premieres on Paramount+ on September 27th.

6.0

The final score: review Average

The 411

Apartment 7A struggles under the weight of the path laid out for it as a Rosemary's Baby prequel, but it finds its strength in a strong lead performance by Julia Garner. As much as Natalie Erika James' film fumbles a bit as it retraces the steps of the 1968 horror classic, it works when it finds ways to differentiate itself thanks to assured direction choices, Garner's work as Terry and the strong supporting cast. It won't endear itself to people who want to hold it up to the original film, but it is quite decent on its own merits.