If “before the classic movie about the birth of the Antichrist” sounds like something you’ve already experienced this year, you haven’t: back in April, The First Omen delivered a terrifically creative exploration of the events leading up to it The Omen. Apartment 7A trying to do the same Rosemary’s babyand while its story offers fewer shocks than The first Omen, it’s still a thoughtfully conceived prequel bolstered by an interesting premise.
Inspired by Ira Levin’s 1967 novel and Roman Polanski’s 1968 film, Apartment 7A it was written and directed by Natalie Erika James, also in her 2020s The remainder-a tale of three generations of women who face a terrifying presence in their family home. Another bad place to stay is in the middle Apartment 7Aagain Rosemary’s baby fans know this all too well: the Bramford, an elegant New York City building whose aging walls hide a den of equally aged Satanic witches.
The new film’s production design pays close attention to detail, and while the setting feels authentic, it doesn’t intend to directly copy Polanski’s version. There are key elements that come through, however, including those ultra-thin partition walls that allow the raised voices and haunting piano notes of “Für Elise” to travel between the units.
Into this mass of dark wood, yellow light, and bird elevators stumbles Terry Gionoffrio, a character who covers the first 15 minutes. Rosemary’s baby. Apartment 7A it takes us back a year or so earlier; it’s 1965, and Terry has just begun a promising dance career when he suffers a traumatic injury. Julia Garner (Ozarknext year Fantastic Four: First Steps) brings vulnerability to his version of Terry. He feels her frustration as she faces not only financial problems, test rejections, and a debilitating dependence on painkillers, but also the unbearable feeling that the goals she’s been pursuing so obsessively are slipping away.
In that environment, he understands why he can make decisions he wouldn’t have made otherwise, such as accepting a free place to live in Minnie and Roman Castavet (Dianne Wiest and Kevin McNally—both good, but not as iconic as Rosemary’s baby stars Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer) shortly after meeting them for the first time. Castavets, you see, easily love to help troubled young women get their lives together. They are also good friends with a resident of Bramford (Jim Sturgess) who has written a new musical that Terry would very much like to be featured in.
We know this is all a very bad idea—after all, Terry’s fate is the reason Rosemary Woodhouse is the next hotbed of Satan’s interest—but James and Garner find ways to bring some emotional spin to Terry’s darkening situation. Like Rosemary, she has to put the pieces together in a story filled with intense ambition, eviction, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, body horror, loneliness, and the heartbreaking feeling of not being safe in one’s home. But unlike Rosemary—a stay-at-home mom who happily hopes to become pregnant—Terry is single, unemployed, unemployed, and has no support system other than her sympathetic best friend.
For all callbacks Rosemary’s baby (most of them are obvious: unexpected short haircuts, vodka blush cocktails, a memorable silver necklace), the new film makes a big change involving crossover plots from both films—an interesting choice, and one that adds a layer of separation between Terry and Rosemary’s problems.
But there is also another big difference that is not easy to put your finger on. One of the most exciting features of the Rosemary’s baby that is not the case just the story of how a mother-to-be gradually realized that she was the target of a sinister conspiracy. Most of it takes place in Bramford, but it feels bigger than that. Along with the main character, the viewer slowly begins to feel confused about the world Rosemary’s baby happened in Just how many people are involved in this apocalyptic massacre? Is this the inevitable end of the universe? When that famous final scene begins, our fears are proven true.
Apartment 7A you feel very close. Terry may think of lighting up her name, but she is best known on Broadway as “the girl who fell,” a chilling reference to her devastating fall on stage. But she’s also “the girl who fell” for the idea that complete strangers can be selfless and kind—and belatedly realizes the terrible price it takes to bring her glorious dreams back to life.
Finally, there are other similarities that connect you Apartment 7A again The First Omen: both are made by women, unlike the classic films that inspired them. Too often we see female actors being put through their paces by male directors; these films represent a welcome change in perspective, especially when it comes to the common type of women’s bodies that are captured and shared in brutal ways.
Apartment 7A is streaming on Paramount+ and will be available for digital purchase on September 27th.
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