APARTMENT 7A

APARTMENT 7A is a supernatural horror movie on Paramount+ based on Ira Levin’s novel ROSEMARY’S BABY. After fatally breaking her ankle on stage, Theresa “Terry” Gionoffrio (Julia Garner) fears her days of becoming a famous Broadway dancer are over. One day, a wealthy elderly couple befriends the young dancer and promises to pay her rent until her next break. However, Terry soon experiences demonic visions. Will she be able to withstand this influence?

Set in 1960’s New York City, Theresa “Terry” Gionoffrio is a young tap dancer looking to prove herself on the Broadway scene. During a live musical performance, Terry lands a complex dance the wrong way and ends up twisting her ankle. She’s rushed to the hospital and her foot is stitched back together. However, her collapse on stage permanently hurts her reputation within the Broadway community.

Months later, Terry struggles to pay her rent, has a limp walk and develops an addiction to painkillers. After stalking a director to his apartment building, Terry loses her balance and passes out on the street. Minnie and Roman Castevet, the wealthy residents of the Bramford apartment complex, rehabilitate Terry to health. The elderly couple invites Terry to live at Bramford if she cleans up her act. Terry agrees to the settlement and successfully snatches another audition.

As Terry’s self-confidence grows, she begins to experience visions of demons. She can’t remember the night she slept with a Broadway director. Moreover, she uncovers a series of disturbing secrets within the Bramford apartment complex.

Will she be able to achieve her ambition? Or has her deal with the elderly couple come back to haunt her?

In terms of entertainment value, APARTMENT 7A delivers on the horror scenes, but falters with the bland writing. For starters, the cinematography is uninventive and plays out more like an amateur Netflix drama. The color grading is dull, the characters are flatter than cardboard, and the pacing is a slog. The acting is good, especially with Julie Garner as the anxiety-riddled protagonist, but even decent actors can’t salvage such bland material, even though the movie is based on a sensational novel and movie from the 1960s.

APARTMENT 7A’s biggest strengths are the musical numbers and the horror scenes. At several points, Terry will suffer a hallucination, usually with herself and the cast performs elaborate stage numbers akin to the Broadway version of ALADDIN. These sequences are well staged, but only take up a small portion of the runtime. Another highlight are the “scary scenes,” where Terry’s life is in danger from either mortal or demonic enemies. The scenes are tense, well-shot, and are genuinely frightening, especially when people fall prey to demonic possession.

Of course, the movie’s biggest failing lies in its moral framework. APARTMENT 7A endorses a selfish, pro-satanic worldview. There are literal demons, a cult of Satan worshippers, and dancers who engage in heavy drinking and sleeping with directors. Terry tries to go to a Catholic Church to pray to God for help, but she doesn’t do a follow-up prayer. She receives a rosary and a Bible, but they do nothing else to ward off the demons. Terry, her friends and her foes only care about advancing their careers and not being ethical people.

Moreover, a central plot twist is Terry’s pregnancy with a demon baby. One night, she did a one night stand with a Broadway director. Terry schedules an abortion, but the demon scares off the doctor and ends the procedure. The movie also has a politically correct plot twist. For example, it frames Terry’s struggle of giving up her career for motherhood as a “bad” thing. At the end, the satanic cult traps Terry, telling her she must give birth to the next heir of Satan. In the only selfless act in the movie, Terry figures out a way to end her satanic nightmare, but her solution is also depressing. Also, the satanic cult continues their quest to reincarnate Satan with unsuspecting women. Essentially, evil remains unchecked, and the heroine learns nothing. Thus, APARTMENT 7A offers an unsatisfying climax to an equally unsatisfying movie overall.

APARTMENT 7A is a low-tier horror flick packaged with an abysmal worldview. Despite the few standout musical numbers, the movie has subpar cinematography and flat characters. It also has a satanic cult, two people getting possessed by demons and a woman trying to abort her demonic baby. APARTMENT 7A does incorporate the rosary and the Bible, but it heavily glorifies satanic worship. It also views suicide as a solution to a moral, spiritual problem. Media-wise viewers will want to avoid this demonic disappointment of a movie.