Apartment 7A - The prequel: hit or miss?

Hibbah Umar

Apartment 7A (2024): Veiled in the shadows of its predecessor, the classic Rosemary’s Baby. Spoilers ahead

“Apartment 7A” is a horror thriller film focusing on the life of Terry Gionoffrio, our female protagonist, as she attempts to reinstate her legendary title as a musical performer. Following a series of failures in trying to get back to the limelight on stage, she is welcomed into the prestigious Bradford Apartment by a wealthy couple who provide her with a comforting second chance at the glorious life she once had. The apartment initially symbolises a new start for Terry, but a series of odd and eerie events stir in the background, becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Terry soon realises other powers at play have sinister intentions in mind.

The execution of the cast’s acting, especially Julia Garner’s as Terry, was definitely one of the main features which motivated audiences to finish the film, whereas the lack of exploration into the protagonists’ anguish and frustrations subtracts from the overall ‘psychological horror’ experience. On the other hand, one cannot deprive Garner of credit where it is due, and the dream-like visions and hallucinations portrayed in the 2024 prequel were on par with that of Rosemary’s from 1968. Another attractive quality of the film is the set aesthetics; there is a great usage of hauntingly empty stages in Terry’s performances to display the façade of her life, even as a successful musical dancer.

The script in itself is lacking, and so it rolls over onto the execution of the storytelling from a broader perspective. The audience is captivated by the distasteful turn of events as they unfold however, when it reaches scenes of ‘horror’, there are not many scenes which invoke the expected feelings of disgust, uncomforting and dread which come with watching this genre of films, and many areas of the story feel unnecessary – much like cramming in typical and expected features of the said genre; such as the demons, cult activity, odd ancient statues.

Comparison to Rosemary’s Baby

A well-rounded attempt by Director Natalie Erika James, who tries to match the iconic status of Roman Polanski’s “Rosemary’s Baby” from 1968. However, falls short of capturing the same level of buzz as the classic had achieved. On the whole, the plot is developed at a successfully haunting pace, which keeps viewers somewhat intrigued, however not without one too many predictable scenes, tragically. Considering there are many scenes which pay homage to the original film, the story in itself is very surface-level, paying special criticism to the literally ‘bejewelled’ villain of the story – which was prosaic in its costume creativity, making the inevitable appearance of said ‘demon’ look rather comical.

Score: 5/10