Avis Metacritic

Were it not for the concrete that is Julia Garner’s take on the lead, “Apartment 7A” could unquestionably spiral into indistinguishable obscurity, but even amidst cliché after cliché, it still manages to fulfill minimum requirements within the pantheon that is Horror 101.

There’s nothing especially mold-breaking here, though an ending moment elicits a gasp even as Apartment 7A ends with a cruel shrug — and perhaps the best thing I can say about that is that now I immediately want to rewatch Rosemary’s Baby. Plus, Garner gives a captivatingly distressed performance as a woman being attacked from all sides, where the only way out is through a window.

Apartment 7A seems afraid to stray too far from Mommy, justifying its existence through the sheer power of the great Julia Garner’s skill level, but leaving little else to recommend it.

The movie is largely entertaining, despite being pulled constantly in two directions: as a predecessor to an iconic work and as a distinct beast, with its own gripes against patriarchal norms.

A credible, if slightly limited, prequel that recaptures the atmosphere if not the originality of Rosemary’s Baby.

It’s not so much a prequel as it is a parallel story that continues underscoring the limited autonomy of women. Restrictive social mores trap both Rosemary and Terry, albeit in different ways.

The whole thing feels like a slightly wayward, if well-intentioned retread that was created out of the opportunity to answer three very specific mysteries in Rosemary's Baby, but muddled things too much. It's certainly passable, and there are things to admire, but this is nothing on the original.

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.

I suppose the best thing to say about Apartment 7A is that once it's over, you'll probably immediately want watch the much better Rosemary's Baby and wash the dull memory of this movie away.

Rather than deepening or complicating the original work, Apartment 7A engages with it purely on franchise terms, as in how it foregrounds the Castavets for much of the runtime.