Many have tried, and failed, to replicate the genre-changing success of Roman Polanski’s “Rosemary’s Baby,” unquestionably one of the most important horror films of all time. Not only was there a sequel and a TV remake (with Zoe Saldana!), but that film’s DNA is steeped in the ones that play every year here at Fantastic Fest, the nation’s most elite horror festival. And so Natalie Erika James’s “Apartment 7A” steps into a massive shadow, one notably larger than the excellent “The First Omen” from earlier this year, another film that ends where a horror hit begins. Yet where that film broke away from “The Omen” to find its own fearless identity, “Apartment 7A” seems afraid to stray too far from Mommy, justifying its existence through the sheer power of the great Julia Garner’s level of skill but leaving little else to recommend it.
The “Ozark” Emmy winner plays Terry Gionoffrio, who fans of Polanski’s film will remember from the beginning of the saga of poor Rosemary Woodhouse, who meets Terry in the creepy basement of the Bamford, only to see his bloodied body on the sidewalk soon after. James takes this supporting character from “Rosemary’s Baby” and imagines her final weeks, tracing the arc of the woman who the evil powers of New York City tried to turn into the mother of the antichrist before Rosemary.
Terry is a dancer in 1965 who suffers a terrible accident on stage, leaving her cautious and unsure about her future. One of the first scenes in which she auditions for a show is one of the best in the film, as the director of the play forces her over and over to repeat the move that injured her, even as it causes her increasingly obvious pain. The show’s producer (Jim Sturgess) is intrigued by this fearless young woman, probably because he can literally see her tolerance for physical brutality. In reality, she’s auditioning for a very different job. Because, of course, he’s the mastermind behind the infamous scheme in Ira Levin’s book and Polanski’s film: impregnate a woman in order to bring about the end of the world.
After going to his apartment building, Terry breaks down, taken in by the Castevets, played here by Dianne Wiest and Kevin McNally. The latter gives a relatively restrained performance as Roman, but the Oscar-winning Wiest gives herself completely to Minnie, clearly attempting to imitate Ruth Gordon but failing to do so. It makes sense to pay homage to an Oscar-winning performance, but Gordon’s tone felt natural, while Wiest comes across as a parody of an over-the-top New Yorker. She reminded me of George Costanza’s mother more than once.
Of course, everyone knows that the kindly Castevets are secretly part of a cult in Bamford, and that poor Terry is their latest target. Though “Apartment 7A” plays a bit with the canon of its source, the truth is that we know Terry’s fate, which casts a cloud of doom over the entire proceedings. Garner does her best to emerge from this fog, but she’s not helped by a production that forgets key elements of what worked in the original, including, most of all, the setting. Watch just the opening scene of “Rosemary’s Baby” and witness the way Polanski used this well-known space in a way that was both unsettling and familiar. There’s no personality to the production design here. It’s just a set.
And “Apartment 7A” isn’t thematically rich enough, either, losing the psychological manipulation element of Rosemary’s marriage at the source and replacing it with nothing at all. Is this the story of a performer going too far? It could easily have been a study in obsession: “Rosemary’s Baby” meets “The Black Swan.” I would watch that movie, but Terry’s identity as a dancer seems to exist only to give “Apartment 7A” a narrative skeleton, not for any interesting thematic excavations.
And yet, amidst all this forgettable filmmaking, along comes Julia Garner, who does SO MUCH with so little. She consistently makes smart choices with body language and dialogue, and remains captivating throughout the film until the wonderful final moment. It’s ironic that a film about an artist being pushed to the limits and used for little more than her body is ultimately just a showcase for an artist herself.
This review was featured at the world premiere at Fantastic Fest. It premieres on Paramount+ on September 27.He.