My Review of Apartment 7A (2024)

 

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 

My Review of Rosemary's Baby (1968)

 

Written And Directed by Roman Polanski 

Roman (re Adrian): "Rock him."

Rosemary: "You're trying to get me to be his mother."

Roman: "Aren't you his mother?"

After finishing up American Horror Story: Delicate, it felt only right to go back and watch the movie that influenced that particular season and yes, it was the better experience. I forgot how good this movie was. Well, the adaptation of Ira Levin's book of the same name.

The premise was simple. It's New York in the 1960s and a young married couple are settling into a new apartment in the Bramford building where the previous tenant killed herself. That would be just the start of the craziness to befall this film.

The couple in question were stage actor Guy Woodhouse (John Cassavetes) and his wife, Rosemary (Mia Farrow). They move into the creepy building, befriend the creepy neighbours Minnie (Ruth Gordon) and Roman Castevet (Sidney Blackmer) and not only that, but the topic having children also came into conversation.

Yeah, by the time we're halfway through the movie we had Rosemary having hallucinations about being involved in a Satanic ritual and then she ended up pregnant. From there on in, it's less joys of impending motherhood and more a growing sense of paranoia and mistrust.

For Rosemary, she had Guy constantly dismissing her concerns, her weight fluctuating, the neighbours being too involved in her pregnancy and a newly recommended doctor that wasn't a bit helpful for her. Oh and any of the few people who might have been able to help her were also taken out of the picture fairly quickly as Rosemary became aware that witchcraft was afoot with her pregnancy.

The rest of the movie of course had Rosemary give birth to her baby, had said baby removed from her before she discovered the horrifying truth about her baby being the next Antichrist. Let's just she didn't take the news particularly well, especially when realising how deeply everyone was involved in this demonic pregnancy happening. 

- The book Rosemary was reading was called All Of Them Witches while baby Adrian had an upside down cross over his bassinet at the end.

- The tannis root was created for the book/movie and doesn't actually exist. It's also the most faithful adaptation ever, changing hardly anything from the source material.

- Standout music: Um, Ave Satanas, anyone? Best not.

- Chronology: 1965-1966, New York.

Rosemary's Baby even to this day remains a classic horror movie. Focusing the themes on motherhood, paranoia, women's liberation as well as witchcraft and Satanism, it's not hard to see why it's had such an enduring legacy. Mia Farrow definitely gave a career best performance with this one.

Rating: 9 out of 10