APARTMENT 7A (2024)

Studio:   Paramount/Platinum Dunes
Director: Natalie Erika James
Writer:   Natalie Erika James, Christian White, Skylar James
Producer: John Krasinski, Allyson Seeger, Michael Bay, Andrew Form, Brad Fuller
Stars:    Julia Garner, Dianne Wiest, Jim Sturgess, Kevin McNally, Marli Siu, Andrew Buchan, Rosy McEwen, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith

Review Score:

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Summary:

In New York City in 1965, an aspiring dancer gets drawn into a Satanic conspiracy after moving into an infamous apartment building.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

In New York City in 1965, aspiring dancer Terry Gionoffrio severely injures her ankle during a performance. The injury creates additional struggles for Terry as she begins popping painkillers, loses out on multiple jobs, and has difficulty paying rent to her friend, fellow dancer Annie Leung.

Terry auditions for famed director Alan Marchand's Broadway musical "The Pale Crook." Identifying her as "the girl who fell," casting director Leo Watts deliberately forces Terry to repeatedly perform a move that abuses her ankle. Alan also attempts to humiliate Terry, but he is impressed when Terry stands up for herself by refusing his demeaning request.

Hoping to personally appeal to him for a part in his production, Terry follows Alan back to The Bramford apartment building where he lives. Upon setting foot inside the lobby, Terry becomes dizzy. Terry stumbles outside and into the arms of elderly residents Minnie and Roman Castevet, who take Terry up to their apartment to recover.

The following morning, Minnie and Roman befriend Terry. They also offer Terry a place to stay in a vacant apartment they own down the hall. Terry accepts. Upon moving in, Terry discovers a shoe that belonged to Joan Cebulski, another young woman whom the Castevets previously took in to supposedly help.

Aware of her desire to get a part in his musical, the Castevets arrange for Terry to have drinks with Alan Marchand in his Bramford apartment. Over conversation about her difficult life growing up in Nebraska, Terry becomes impaired from drugs Alan secretly put in her cocktail. Coming in and out of consciousness, Terry experiences a vision of performing in a small theater that ends with her being raped by Satan.

When she wakes in his bed the next morning, Terry presumes she had sex with Alan. Alan informs Terry she now has a role dancing in the chorus for his show. At rehearsal, Terry notices various bruises and scratches all over her body. The show's lead performer, Vera Clarke, also insults Terry for seemingly sleeping with Alan to get her job.

Minnie introduces Terry to another neighbor, Lily Gardenia. Lily gives Terry a homemade salve to apply to her injured ankle. Terry's leg quickly improves.

At the Castevets' Christmas party, Terry meets obstetrician Dr. Sapirstein. Terry overhears Minnie and Lily arguing. The Castevets gift Terry with a fur coat as well as a necklace containing tannis root. While alone with her friend Annie later, Terry sees a vision of demonic hands emerging from the coat to cradle her stomach.

Terry learns she is pregnant, and assumes Alan is the father. Having overheard her mentioning the possibility of an abortion to Annie, Vera pranks Terry by having her sit on an egg and ketchup. Alan forces Vera to clean up the mess. Terry is upset to discover Alan knows about her pregnancy when she wanted to keep it secret for fear of career ramifications.

Terry returns home to find the Castevets in her kitchen. Terry expresses frustration that word of her pregnancy spread. Minnie advises Terry to start seeing Dr. Sapirstein, but Terry reveals she hasn't decided if she's going to keep the baby. Minnie and Roman show Terry a nursery and offer to raise the baby for her in exchange for anything Terry wants. Terry idly says all she wants is to be on stage. Minnie says Terry deserves to get out of the chorus and become a star. Terry agrees.

Terry wakes to find Lily Gardenia in her apartment. Lily says she "has to stop it" before suddenly attacking Terry with a knife. While Terry hides, someone slashes at Lily, who ends up wheeled away in a coma by paramedics.

Terry discovers Lily entered her apartment through a secret passageway in a shared wall. Terry sneaks over to Lily's apartment and finds an occult book written in Latin that includes images of Satan impregnating a woman and also the tannis root necklace the Castevets gave her.

During the next rehearsal, Vera suddenly contorts into painful positions that twist her body. Terry replaces Vera as the new star of the show.

As her strange visions continue, Terry calls Dr. Sapirstein. Sapirstein downplays Terry's concerns, and ultimately implies her frightening visions are merely due to hysteria.

With her suspicions about the Castevets and her pregnancy mounting, Terry investigates the disappearance of her predecessor, Joan Cebulski. A stage manager grants Terry access to Joan's abandoned belongings. Terry's hand burns when she touches Joan's keepsake bible.

Terry brings Lily's occult tome to a church. Upon finding Terry in distress, Sister Claire warns her that The Bramford has secretly housed a congregation of Satan worshippers for generations, and the book is their unholy scripture. The nun goes on to explain Joan Cebulski was hit by a bus, but eyewitnesses saw someone chasing her. To her horror, Sister Claire realizes Terry took Joan's place as the coven's choice to bear Satan's child.

Annie takes Terry for an abortion. Before the procedure can take place, Terry uncontrollably kicks the woman performing the operation. The woman begins convulsing as though entranced. Afterward, Terry tells Annie she believes a conspiracy at The Bramford is doing something to her, but she is determined to face it on her own.

Terry follows Minnie to a secret subbasement in The Bramford. There, Terry finds a hidden theater and black mass altar. Alan confronts her. Terry finally remembers the coven surrounding her in that same place when she was raped by Satan. Terry stabs Alan to death. She then flees upstairs, but doorman Toby locks her inside the building. Terry next rushes back to her apartment where she finds the Castevets waiting for her.

Minnie reminds Terry they made a deal. Terry threatens to stab herself in the stomach, but she is supernaturally prevented from thrusting the blade downward. Minnie and Roman confirm Satan is her unborn child's father.

Terry seemingly accepts Minnie's explanation that being the antichrist's mother is the real role destined to make Terry famous worldwide. The Castevets escort Terry to their apartment where she is welcomed by the coven. After joining in to hail Satan, Terry begins dancing in front of everyone before unexpectedly jumping out a window to her death.

With Terry's body lying on the sidewalk, Bramford residents Guy and Rosemary Woodhouse talk to a police officer. Minnie and Roman prepare to introduce themselves to the other couple.

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Review:

Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" (review here) spawned a peculiar sequel in 1976 that made some curious creative choices. Broadcast as an ABC-TV movie, "Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby" (review here) featured Ruth Gordon revisiting her Academy Award-winning role of Minnie Castevet, Tina Louise from "Gilligan's Island" as a devil-obsessed trailer park hooker, and Stephen McHattie playing an adult antichrist with a penchant for disco dancing in mime makeup. Although it doesn't possess the production quality required to be considered a "lost classic," the forgotten film still stands out as a strange sprinkling of nostalgia from an era when broadcast television wasn't afraid to be bizarre. If you can't be "good," at least be "weird," and "Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby" definitely leans toward the latter.

"Rosemary's Baby" prequel "Apartment 7A," on the other hand, is neither particularly good nor weird by traditional definitions. Overcorrecting in the opposite direction by being plainly pedestrian, "Apartment 7A" plays more like a remake than a prequel since aspiring dancer Terry Gionoffrio's arc follows Rosemary's story virtually beat for beat, leaving no room for surprises or suspense for anyone already familiar with the original motion picture.

If the 1968 film is vivid in your memory, you may remember Terry Gionoffrio from "Rosemary's Baby." When Guy and Rosemary Woodhouse first move into the notorious Bramford building, Rosemary meets Terry in the laundry room. Introducing herself as a guest of Minnie and Roman Castevet, Terry shows Rosemary a pungent necklace the couple gave her as a gift. Rosemary sees Terry again three movie minutes later under very different circumstances. If you recall those circumstances, that scene becomes a spoiler for how "Apartment 7A" ends.

Back to the beginning, Terry is struggling to make her way in New York City in 1965. Later on, Terry has a contemplative moment where she watches a girl get off a bus with suitcase in hand, staring wide-eyed at the bright lights of a Broadway marquee. A naive farmgirl from Nebraska, Terry likely wore the same elated expression once, although "Apartment 7A" might have been more subtle about the cliched metaphor if either girl had been depicted bouncing out the back of a turnip truck instead.

Terry hits hard times after injuring her leg during a performance. She starts popping painkillers, flops audition after audition, and struggles to pay her rent. A role in famed director Alan Marchand's new musical could be a big break. Terry just needs Marchand to pay attention to her.

Hoping to plead her case in person, Terry follows Marchand back to The Bramford. Terry never makes it to Marchand, because she becomes mysteriously dizzy almost as soon as she enters the lobby. Terry rushes outside, right into the arms of Minnie and Roman Castevet, who take the girl up to their apartment to recover, and ultimately offer her a place to stay until she can get herself together and her career back on track.

The Castevets quickly use their connections to get Terry that meeting with Marchand, except their meeting takes the form of drugged drinks in his apartment. Terry's groggy head fades in and out of a fantasy where she does a dance routine in a dark theater, though the dream morphs into a nightmare when it ends with a bejeweled beast mounting her helpless body. When she later turns out to be pregnant, Terry assumes Marchand must be the father, but the truth is more terrifying than that.

Establishing itself as a quiet thriller with moody drama first and foremost, "Apartment 7A" tries to slide in subtext about the misogynistic manipulation of casting couches and abused power dynamics, but oddly never fully commits to the commentary. Terry expresses unease over what happened in Marchand's apartment, yet she doesn't conclusively confirm if she considers Marchand a rapist, or partly blames herself for possibly drunken sex she doesn't remember. Terry runs a gauntlet of humiliating hurdles that hammer home the notion she's better off keeping her mouth shut no matter who demeans her, but other than merely presenting inappropriate behavior as bad, a screenplay more concerned about conventions like a nun's serendipitously silly exposition doesn't offer original food for thought on the topic.

Instead of taking on a post-MeToo tone, "Apartment 7A" might have delivered more striking, and timely, material by approaching Terry's situation from a post-Roe perspective. Terry not only considers abortion, her friend accompanies her to an alleyway clinic for a procedure that's prevented by supernatural forces. For a 2024 film that takes place in 1965 to not draw sharper parallels between the two contrasted social climates feels cowardly, and does the film a disservice by reducing it to a standard scary movie afraid to deeply explore issues of bodily autonomy and culpability.

A couple of buoys keep "Apartment 7A" from becoming completely submerged in redundant waters. A few CGI enhancements on background scenery notwithstanding, sets, costumes, and props accurately recreate 1960s New York along with recognizable "Rosemary's Baby" locations. Arguably underused, Dianne Wiest eats up the Minnie Castevet role by doing a devilishly delightful impression of Ruth Gordon and never wavering from the imitation. Julia Garner rivals Elisabeth Moss as an actor who can emit strength, sorrow, subservience, or sudden emotional shifts with looks alone. "Apartment 7A's" script is below Garner's abilities, but her captivating presence sells Terry's story even though it's only echoing the same tale told six decades earlier.

As a standalone thriller, Garner, Wiest, and appealing production design make the movie worth 100 minutes of time. As a prequel, "Apartment 7A" serves no appreciable purpose, since the film doesn't add nuance to "Rosemary's Baby" or reveal anything new about carryover characters like Dr. Sapirstein or the Castevets. The only difference between how the two films operate is that we know how this one will turn out because we've seen these exact same events before. Basically, Terry Gionoffrio's ordeal simply seems like a trial run for what Rosemary Woodhouse experiences in a scarier, sleeker, superior movie.

Review Score: 55

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