rewrite this content and keep HTML tags I’m not the first to say it, and I sure as hell won’t be the last, but I’m going to shout it to the heavens a
rewrite this content and keep HTML tags
I’m not the first to say it, and I sure as hell won’t be the last, but I’m going to shout it to the heavens anyway: I am so tired of legacy sequels. Or prequels. Or whatever it is that studios decide to make to cash in on pre-existing IP that did not need a follow-up, thank you very much. Top Gun: Maverick did it right, but that doesn’t mean that every one that comes after will be able to catch lightning in a bottle in the same way. (Especially if you don’t have Tom Cruise.)
That’s very much the case for Rosemary’s Baby, a horror classic that Paramount has decided needed digging up from its grave in order to stomp all over poor Rosemary and everything she suffered for the sake of a prequel — Apartment 7A, which just premiered at Fantastic Fest. Apartment 7A treads the exact same territory as its nearly 60-year-old predecessor without straying from the path even a tiny bit. The plot is almost identical: young dancer Terry (Julia Garner) moves into a too-expensive-for-her apartment in New York City, goaded on by her wealthy, elderly neighbors (Dianne Wiest and Kevin McNally), only to find that she’s been inseminated with something dark and dangerous entirely against her will, in exchange for living her dreams. Take away the idiot husband from the original and it’s damn near a carbon copy.
‘Apartment 7A’ Adds Nothing to ‘Rosemary’s Baby’s Legacy
It’s been a hell of a year for sequels, with everything from Deadpool & Wolverine to Twisters taking over the box office. But really, why must we keep over-explaining exactly how a franchise works? Why must we take away the movie magic of filling in the gaps with our imagination? It works even less often in horror, where the appeal itself draws from the unknown, of the things that hide in the shadows that can’t really be explained. There are few exceptions to that rule, of course — The First Omen comes to mind, primarily because if you scrubbed the serial numbers off, it’d be its own thing entirely, without the burden of a legacy weighing on its shoulders. It doesn’t simply retread old ground, audiences aren’t already well familiar with exactly what’s going to happen. It understands that fear is enough to propel a story forward when it comes to horror, so why did Apartment 7A take all that effort to try and explain their own babbling little demon, when all that does is suck the fun out of it?
Not that there’s a ton to have fun with here, really — even if you’re a fan of the original. It’s a strange set-up even if you take away the off-putting nature of Terry’s neighbors and their little Satanic cult. The young dancer, injured after a particularly gnarly fall in a production of Kiss Me, Kate, finds herself cavorting with a Broadway producer who’s bad news from the start, practically standing under a shining marquee that says, “Look at me! I’m going to violate you for a chance at success!” And even when it’s that obvious who the real villain is, the film still takes great pains to walk you through exactly how to feel, down to Terry’s protestations about having kids at all, much less demonic ones.
Julia Garner’s Terry Doesn’t Compare to Mia Farrow’s Rosemary
That kind of simplicity does Garner no favors here. She’s already inevitably set to be compared to Mia Farrow a million times over, including by this reviewer, despite attempting to keep a clear head. It’s unavoidable, down to the mid-film haircut Terry gets from her overbearing neighbor — though hers is hardly Farrow’s iconic Vidal Sassoon cut. (I’d know, I took a photo of the latter to the salon when I got my blonde pixie cut.) I can’t tell whether it’s the script’s black-and-white treatment of morality that makes Terry such a blandly uninteresting character, or the fact that Garner isn’t close to giving her best work (a far cry from her multiple-Emmy-winning performance in Ozark), especially in the film’s climactic final sequence. Compared to Farrow, whose horrific scream at the sight of her child is forever burned into cinema history, Garner is just another in a long line of interchangeable leading ladies whose names I can never remember.
Dianne Weist, on the other hand, is chewing scenery like it’s a four-course meal. It’s one of those roles that it’s a joy to watch actors age into, rather than out of, and she is by far the highlight (and maybe the only actively enjoyable part) of the film. I can’t discern exactly what kind of accent she’s attempting to do — is it New York? Is it Jersey? Who knows! — but anytime someone puts on a voice that sounds exactly like my elderly cousin Carol, I’m all for it. Kevin McNally too, though it’s hard for Weist not to steal every scene she’s in, even the most climactic ones for Terry.
‘Apartment 7A’ Has None of ‘Rosemary’s Baby’s Atmosphere
The film does so little work to make me care about the girl that came before Rosemary that I simply found myself wondering how she was going to die to properly set up the events of the original. Loath as I am to compliment Roman Polanski of all people, Rosemary’s Baby has an air to it; a tone that sets your teeth on edge, rather than a simple collection of scenes filled with some reupholstered ‘60s furniture and a bad attempt at a pixie cut. Apartment 7A, on the other hand, puts in no effort to make you feel unnerved, aside from a couple of jumpscares that feel more like they fit in a haunted house than an actual film. It never actually deals with the horror of what’s happening to Terry, just shows it to you point blank, like watching a documentary on paint drying. You know from the start who the villains are, what the stakes are, and exactly where things are going, so what’s the point in watching to the end?
It’s difficult to bring yourself to care about Terry when it’s clear she’s just an obstacle for the antichrist to burn through before he gets to poor Rosemary. Similar to how many were disappointed to find that Twisters was essentially just a rehash of the exact events of Twister with an Instagram filter over them, Apartment 7A has the same problem. Sure, our views surrounding pregnancy and a woman’s right to choose have changed, which inherently reframes the story, but that doesn’t work out to anything meaningful in its favor. If anything, it just further places its roots in the modern day and distances it from the story it’s supposed to be a prequel to.
Rosemary’s Baby is the quintessential antichrist story, a tale of intimacy and childbirth as physical invasion and body horror in a way not many other films have managed since. It twists my stomach to imagine being betrayed in such a profound way, even as someone who doesn’t love Satanic Panic stories and sets my AFAB nerves on fire — all Apartment 7A manages to do is dump a cold bucket of water all over them.
Apartment 7A had its premiere at Fantastic Fest. It will be available to watch on VOD and Paramount+ on September 27.
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I’m not the first to say it, and I sure as hell won’t be the last, but I’m going to shout it to the heavens anyway: I am so tired of legacy sequels. Or prequels. Or whatever it is that studios decide to make to cash in on pre-existing IP that did not need a follow-up, thank you very much. Top Gun: Maverick did it right, but that doesn’t mean that every one that comes after will be able to catch lightning in a bottle in the same way. (Especially if you don’t have Tom Cruise.)
That’s very much the case for Rosemary’s Baby, a horror classic that Paramount has decided needed digging up from its grave in order to stomp all over poor Rosemary and everything she suffered for the sake of a prequel — Apartment 7A, which just premiered at Fantastic Fest. Apartment 7A treads the exact same territory as its nearly 60-year-old predecessor without straying from the path even a tiny bit. The plot is almost identical: young dancer Terry (Julia Garner) moves into a too-expensive-for-her apartment in New York City, goaded on by her wealthy, elderly neighbors (Dianne Wiest and Kevin McNally), only to find that she’s been inseminated with something dark and dangerous entirely against her will, in exchange for living her dreams. Take away the idiot husband from the original and it’s damn near a carbon copy.
‘Apartment 7A’ Adds Nothing to ‘Rosemary’s Baby’s Legacy
It’s been a hell of a year for sequels, with everything from Deadpool & Wolverine to Twisters taking over the box office. But really, why must we keep over-explaining exactly how a franchise works? Why must we take away the movie magic of filling in the gaps with our imagination? It works even less often in horror, where the appeal itself draws from the unknown, of the things that hide in the shadows that can’t really be explained. There are few exceptions to that rule, of course — The First Omen comes to mind, primarily because if you scrubbed the serial numbers off, it’d be its own thing entirely, without the burden of a legacy weighing on its shoulders. It doesn’t simply retread old ground, audiences aren’t already well familiar with exactly what’s going to happen. It understands that fear is enough to propel a story forward when it comes to horror, so why did Apartment 7A take all that effort to try and explain their own babbling little demon, when all that does is suck the fun out of it?
Not that there’s a ton to have fun with here, really — even if you’re a fan of the original. It’s a strange set-up even if you take away the off-putting nature of Terry’s neighbors and their little Satanic cult. The young dancer, injured after a particularly gnarly fall in a production of Kiss Me, Kate, finds herself cavorting with a Broadway producer who’s bad news from the start, practically standing under a shining marquee that says, “Look at me! I’m going to violate you for a chance at success!” And even when it’s that obvious who the real villain is, the film still takes great pains to walk you through exactly how to feel, down to Terry’s protestations about having kids at all, much less demonic ones.
Julia Garner’s Terry Doesn’t Compare to Mia Farrow’s Rosemary
That kind of simplicity does Garner no favors here. She’s already inevitably set to be compared to Mia Farrow a million times over, including by this reviewer, despite attempting to keep a clear head. It’s unavoidable, down to the mid-film haircut Terry gets from her overbearing neighbor — though hers is hardly Farrow’s iconic Vidal Sassoon cut. (I’d know, I took a photo of the latter to the salon when I got my blonde pixie cut.) I can’t tell whether it’s the script’s black-and-white treatment of morality that makes Terry such a blandly uninteresting character, or the fact that Garner isn’t close to giving her best work (a far cry from her multiple-Emmy-winning performance in Ozark), especially in the film’s climactic final sequence. Compared to Farrow, whose horrific scream at the sight of her child is forever burned into cinema history, Garner is just another in a long line of interchangeable leading ladies whose names I can never remember.
Dianne Weist, on the other hand, is chewing scenery like it’s a four-course meal. It’s one of those roles that it’s a joy to watch actors age into, rather than out of, and she is by far the highlight (and maybe the only actively enjoyable part) of the film. I can’t discern exactly what kind of accent she’s attempting to do — is it New York? Is it Jersey? Who knows! — but anytime someone puts on a voice that sounds exactly like my elderly cousin Carol, I’m all for it. Kevin McNally too, though it’s hard for Weist not to steal every scene she’s in, even the most climactic ones for Terry.
‘Apartment 7A’ Has None of ‘Rosemary’s Baby’s Atmosphere
The film does so little work to make me care about the girl that came before Rosemary that I simply found myself wondering how she was going to die to properly set up the events of the original. Loath as I am to compliment Roman Polanski of all people, Rosemary’s Baby has an air to it; a tone that sets your teeth on edge, rather than a simple collection of scenes filled with some reupholstered ‘60s furniture and a bad attempt at a pixie cut. Apartment 7A, on the other hand, puts in no effort to make you feel unnerved, aside from a couple of jumpscares that feel more like they fit in a haunted house than an actual film. It never actually deals with the horror of what’s happening to Terry, just shows it to you point blank, like watching a documentary on paint drying. You know from the start who the villains are, what the stakes are, and exactly where things are going, so what’s the point in watching to the end?
It’s difficult to bring yourself to care about Terry when it’s clear she’s just an obstacle for the antichrist to burn through before he gets to poor Rosemary. Similar to how many were disappointed to find that Twisters was essentially just a rehash of the exact events of Twister with an Instagram filter over them, Apartment 7A has the same problem. Sure, our views surrounding pregnancy and a woman’s right to choose have changed, which inherently reframes the story, but that doesn’t work out to anything meaningful in its favor. If anything, it just further places its roots in the modern day and distances it from the story it’s supposed to be a prequel to.
Rosemary’s Baby is the quintessential antichrist story, a tale of intimacy and childbirth as physical invasion and body horror in a way not many other films have managed since. It twists my stomach to imagine being betrayed in such a profound way, even as someone who doesn’t love Satanic Panic stories and sets my AFAB nerves on fire — all Apartment 7A manages to do is dump a cold bucket of water all over them.
Apartment 7A had its premiere at Fantastic Fest. It will be available to watch on VOD and Paramount+ on September 27.
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