Paramount has released its first trailer for Apartment 7A, its upcoming prequel to 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby. Have at it:
As detailed in the trailer, the story is set in 1965 New York and concerns an aspiring dancer named Terry Gionoffrio (Julia Garner) who suffers an ankle injury. After moving into the original film’s cursed Bramford apartment building, she meets a well-connected elderly couple (Dianne Wiest and Kevin McNally) who promise her a second chance at making her dream come true. By coincidence or design, a neighboring tenant (Jim Sturgess) just so happens to be an influential Broadway producer. Unsurprisingly if you’ve seen the original, Terry has trouble remembering an evening spent with her new friends and may now be the unwilling mother of the Antichrist.
While it may seem an odd license to build a franchise from, Apartment 7A is either the third, fourth or fifth installment of the Rosemary’s Baby saga depending on how you look at it. Following the original film, a made-for-TV sequel titled Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby aired on ABC in 1976. In 1997, author Ira Levin wrote a Son of Rosemary, a sequel to his original novel 30 years later. In 2014, a two-part, four hour modernization of the original movie aired on NBC. This new film, which sees Wiest and McNally taking over the roles of Minnie and Roman Castavet from Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer, respectively, will apparently chronicle their first failed attempt to birth the son of Satan.
If this all sounds silly and unnecessary to you, you’re not wrong, but at least the costumes and set design look nice. And we’re very curious about that sequin-encrusted demon at the end of the trailer meant to reflect the folly of showbiz, or whatever. Judging by the trailer, the production looks like a cosplay of the original film, so your mileage will vary on whether or not that’s appealing to you. If you enjoy camp and horror franchises for their own sake, though, you’ll likely find something to enjoy here.
In addition to Garner, Wiest, McNally, and Sturgess, Apartment 7A co-stars JMarli Siu, Rosy McEwen, Scott Hume, Andrew Buchan, and Koba Holdbrook-Smith—plus Kevin Swanton as Satan and Amy Leeson as Rosemary Woodhouse. It’s directed by Natalie Erika James (Relic), with a screen story by Skylar James and a screenplay by Natalie Erika James & Christian White and Skylar James.
It premieres this September 27 exclusively on Paramount+.
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