Apartment 7A (Paramount Plus)- A Spooky season Review
No one asked for this. This isn’t even a franchise. Who was sitting around at Paramount so desperate for attention that they pitched a prequel to Rosemary’s Baby? Julia Garner wasn’t even born. She’s younger than I am, and that movie predates me. It is largely regarded as a classic, while this will fall into the category of “WTF” for the rest of time, like when Disney overreached and started making sequels to everything. Like… Bambi 2.
I had actually forgotten this was a thing, but halfway through, I realized what this was. It features a dancer (Garner) who goes through a bit of a struggle, until some nice folk come along and help her… but are they really nice? Garner has proved she’s an exceptional actress on TV in Ozark and Inventing Anna, but it seems like her film prospects are oddly dim. She’s also trapped in this with Dianne Wiest, one of the greatest living actresses, who gets abused and misused now by an industry that can’t figure out what to do with all these fucking *legends* over the age of 70. Wiest was barely in Mayor Of Kings Town, and got dumped for the third season. She has TWO Oscar’s. Do you have two Oscars? I hate to say it, but maybe it’s time to let Woody Allen make a movie for Dianne Wiest, since he’s the only person who seems to know how to write for her.I remember seeing her in Life In pieces, CBS’s attempt at knocking off Modern Family, and feeling terrible for her years ago. She also had an article about how desperate for work she was, despite her two Oscars, and how she was almost broke because of the lack of offers. With all these films being offered to actresses like Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Kathy Bates, Susan Sarandon, and the rest of the 70+ crowd, it is just such a shame to see so many wonderful actresses consistently wasted in film.Award Winning actresses can only appear in groups of three or four, and all have some inane plot they are saddled with. Here, Wiest just gets to play crazy.
My initial video review is above, but as time has passed, I’ve grown to resent this film even more for existing. I gave it a pass a little too much on behalf of Garner and Wiest,but this film is truly beneath them, has nothing to say, isn’t scary at all, and pales in comparison to a film regularly considered as one of the pinnacle’s in horror excellence.
Final Grade: D+
