Should you move into "APARTMENT 7A" , the prequel to "ROSEMARY'S BABY?" (REVIEW)

Prequels are a particular challenge for any filmmaker. They’re a thankless task to say the least. The expectation is high, the audience knows what happens to the characters, the same beats can’t (or shouldn’t) be used.  For every “PEARL", “PREY”, or “OUIJA 2” there’s an “EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING” or “HANNIBAL RISING”. A filmmaker has to either have a unique take, which means diverting away from the original, or take what made the original beloved and add more, more, more which often can come off as flat or disingenuous. It must be frustrating trying to come up with a new, better, more dazzling take on a beloved piece of cinematic gold and sadly, that’s why so many directors fall back on a retread of what worked before but with almost always diminishing results.  “APARTMENT 7A”, the prequel to “ROSEMARY’S BABY” is an outlier in that it’s something of a hybrid of both these paths. The film, directed by Natalie Erika James (“RELIC”) from a screenplay by James, Christian White, and Skylar James does manage to have a unique take and goes for more but ultimately neither path completes the journey to a satisfying end.

We never knew Terri Gionoffrio’s (JULIA GARNER) backstory, only that she was at a low point and the Castevets gave her the chance at a better life.  This is new territory for the viewer and James does an admirable job of fleshing it out. Teri has fled Nebraska to New York City to make a name for herself as a dancer only to be sidelined with a horrific ankle fracture.  Her reliance on pills to keep dancing leads to her eventual downfall and our meet not-so-cute with the Castevet This is an inspired choice because it provides a musicality to the film that works.  The dance numbers are visually striking and the score is fantastic.  We know it’s bizarre in a story about a coven trying to give birth to the spawn of Satan but these scenes have the most life to them, everything else is a tired retelling of a story we already know.  I wish there had been more of these scenes and their energy. throughout the film.

 That brings us to the other path, the almost beat by beat repeat of the original.  We have the dreamlike waking nightmares and escalating paranoia, Teri doubting her eyes and rationalizing away her fears but none of them fully land. The film is stylized and gorgeous to look at but it never comes close to rising above or even meeting the grandeur or the original.  The look and feel of Polanski’s film is here but the fractured fairytale aesthetic is never present. ROSEMARY’S BABY succeeds for so many reason but that fairytale feeling, the baby shower colors, the lilting, sing-song score, the weasel in Prince Charming clothing is missing from APARTMENT 7A. Julia Garner is game for the demonic shenanigans as Teri and Dianne Wiest does a mean Ruth Gordon as Minnie Catevet, their scenes together are the most playful and menacing of the film.  Jim Sturgess as Producer Alan Marchand is propped up as the Guy Woodhouse of APARTMENT 7A but Sturgess can’t bring himself to much more than mustache twirling and slinking in the shadows. There’s none of the sly, panicky gaslighting that John Cassavetes brought to his role. Everyone else does a fine job but they’re all imminently forgettable and that truly sums up all but the last five minutes of this film, it’s all so forgettable.

We would have loved for APARTMENT 7A to take bigger swings, or any swings for that matter. James has shown previously that she can bring the scary, it’s all but gone here. The effort and style are evident but there are no true shocks or thrills.  The coven takes a keen interest in making sure Teri has her deepest desires fulfilled and that’s when we expect things to turn ugly for the brats and bullies that have tormented our protagonist but no, there’s barely a comeuppance much less an outright OMEN/FINAL DESTINATION shocker.  The one death scene we do get is so tepid it seems like a studio note. The biggest offense of APARTMENT 7A is that so many of the pieces are present, great actors, beautiful sets, an accomplished genre director, and a beloved horror blueprint, but when assembled the final piece fails to come remotely close to the horror pedigree from which it came.

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