Written by Natalie Erika James And Christian White And Skylar James
Directed by Natalie Erika James
Terry (to Minnie): "It's the role of a lifetime."
After sitting through nine episodes of American Horror Story: Delicate, did I really want to venture back into the world of Rosemary's Baby? Not entirely but I also wanted to see if this prequel had what it took to add to an overfamiliar horror story.
Set before the events of that story, you've got aspiring dancer, Theresa "Terry" Gionoffrio (Julia Garner) doing her level best to get into a Broadway production. The only thing that she's achieved was to earn the nickname "the girl who fell" and the general disinterest of producers Alan Marchland (Jim Sturgess) and Leo Watts (Andrew Buchan). Then her luck somewhat changed.
Encountering an elderly couple, Minnie (Dianne Wiest) and Roman Castevet (Kevin McNally), Terry found herself living in the rent free 7A apartment in Bramford. Not only that but Minnie's friend, Lily Gardenia (Tina Gray) helped to heal her leg, Terry booked a Broadway gig and she even had a strange encounter with Marchland that she can't quite remember either.
Of course getting involved with the Castevets would turn out to be a bad omen for Terry. Her only friend in the movie and fellow dancer, Annie Leung (Marli Siu) pointed out the oddity of the Castevets wanting to take care of Terry. Then there was the disappearance of previous occupant, Joan Cebulski, who had a lot in common with Terry.
Yup, Terry ended up pregnant and feared it would end her Broadway career. Then there was Minnie and Roman insisting they'd look after the baby while Terry kept working along with Lily trying to kill her and Dr Sapirstein (Patrick Lyster) also gaslighting her. Not to mention some rather violent dreams and a Grimoire that revealed quite a lot.
Terry found herself in a situation where she would be giving birth to the Antichrist and everyone around her were doing their best to keep her isolated and compliant in order to give birth. There's a great scene with a certain song in which Terry took the most drastic measure she could in order to reclaim her autonomy and stop baby Antichrist from coming into the world.
- The film went straight to Paramount+ with no theatrical release as well as video on demand a week later.
- There's a young couple who appear that are clearly meant to be the Woodhouses.
- Standout music: The use of the Ronettes Be My Baby during that particular scene was the best moments in the movie.
- Chronology: The movie takes place in 1964 and 1965, New York City with a post credit directly leading into the start of Rosemary's Baby.
Apartment 7A pretty much just recycled the story of what's a prequel to but it's a surprisingly better handled than expected. There's nothing overly original, scary or too shocking but there's some nice moments and a solid performance from Julia Garner while Dianne Wiest certainly cranked her role up a bit. It's not bad.
Rating: 6 out of 10
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