THE third time is usually the charm but not in the case of Apartment 7A as Hollywood once again delivers another Antichrist baby movie from its creatively bankrupt womb to bore audiences with.
Apartment 7A is the third film in the “Satan gets a woman pregnant” category to release this year after Immaculate and The First Omen. Like the latter, which was a prequel to the superior The Omen (1976), this film is a prequel to 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby.
Set just before the events in the latter, Apartment 7A revolves around Terry Gionoffrio (Julia Garner), a dancer struggling to make ends meet after suffering an ankle injury.
After a chance encounter with Roman (Kevin McNally) and Minnie Castevet (Dianne Wiest), Gionoffrio receives an entire apartment unit for free from the elderly couple who also live in the same building.
She soon realises behind their oddly friendly demeanour, the Castevets have other plans for her.
Directed by convicted paedophile Roman Polanski, Rosemary’s Baby was a complete film and a psychological horror masterpiece.
It has a beginning, middle and an end. It was not created with a sequel in mind nor did it have room for a prequel as the Hollywood machinery of that era predated the insanity of horror sequels that began in the 1980s.
That puts Apartment 7A in a questionable position as it lazily bends, contorts and stretches itself into making sense as a prequel to Rosemary’s Baby and because it is preoccupied with fitting into the timeline that leads into the latter, this film lacks any identity of its own.
Everything in this film is either a retread of plot points or a referential callback to that film. The only originality is Gionoffrio’s background as a dancer as she only briefly appears in the original film. Much of what made Rosemary’s Baby pop and shine is missing here, such as the paranoia and the fear of childbirth.
Granted, this film is more focused on Gionoffrio’s fear of being handicapped and losing her sense of agency, it simply does not mesh well with the film’s core involving demon babies, cults and crazy old people.
There is only one reason to watch Apartment 7A and that is for Julia Garner’s performance. Fans of Ozark are sure to enjoy the different range that the Emmy Award-winning actress displays in this film.
In between the unintentionally silly aspects like Satan being covered in glitter and Wiest’s overly eccentric performance, Garner single-handedly shoulders the responsibility of making a cash grab like Apartment 7A somewhat charming.
Apartment 7A is available on AppleTV and Paramount+.
