A frustrated performer. Nice, if pushy, elderly neighbors. A stately old building filled with amazing apartments. Of course these images would show up in Apartment 7A, the upcoming Rosemary’s Baby prequel on Paramount+.
But what really stands out are the specific echoes and reverberations of the 1968 Rosemary’s Baby‘s very aesthetic in the Apartment 7A trailer. Dianne Wiest does a brassy impression of Ruth Gordon, stepping into the late actor’s Oscar-winning role as Minnie Castevet. Conversely, where Mia Farrow played the titular Rosemary as as a vulnerable waif, and Angela Dorian played dancer-turned-drug addict Terry Gionoffrio as a woman at the end of her rope, Julia Garner gives us a new version of Terry who is more defined by strength and self-determination.
The trailer also shows an impressive visual flair. Rosemary’s Baby is certainly a fantastic looking movie, but Apartment 7A has its own take on life inside the Dakota Apartment complex in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. In both stories, it is there that the nosy Castevets (including Minnie’s husband Roman, played now by Kevin McNally) manipulate a young neighbor into becoming the vessel for the son of Satan. And in the trailer for the prequel, we see surreal fantasy images with a slimier version of Satan, his infamous eyes still intact, moving toward Terry’s body. We also witness how Terry’s self-perception as a dancer is corrupted by devilish influences work as a dancer, complete with hands dancing around her to either celebrate or snatch her. And various extreme angle shots heighten the humor in Weist’s menacing take on Minnie.
These visual flourishes and attention on character should come as no surprise to those who saw director Natalie Erika James‘ first movie, the excellent Relic (2020). Set in her native Australia, Relic followed three generations of women dealing with the matriarch Edna’s (Robyn Nevin) descent into dementia. When Edna goes missing, her daughter Kay (Emily Mortimer) and granddaughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) arrive to investigate. When Edna returns, she seems fine. But she’s also given to moments of strange and terrifying behavior, as if possessed by some sort of monster.
As this description indicates, Relic uses horror tropes to explore the terrors of dementia. But unlike most attempts at “elevated horror,” Relic gives equal attention to its scares and its drama, supplementing one with the other without undercutting either. James pulls off the trick through powerful imagery, including black mold that covers Edna’s house and is reflected by a bruise on her body.
The skill that James demonstrates in Relic should quell some of the concerns about a prequel to a beloved film. After all, she is addressing a genuine question left behind in both the 1968 movie and the 1967 Ira Levin novel Rosemary’s Baby: what exactly happened to Rosemary’s predecessor? We know how Terry’s story ends, as she commits suicide in Rosemary’s Baby (or is made to like she did). But we don’t know how Terry got ensnared in the Castevets’ plot.
Will the conspiracy that surrounds Terry be as terrifying as the one that undid Rosemary? Director James is on the right track by pulling from the same visual cues that made the original film so powerful.
Apartment 7A streams on Paramount+ on Sept. 27 2024.
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