"Apartment 7A": A first look at the forerunner to Rosemary's Baby

In one of the most classic occult horror films of the 20th century, a young couple decide in spite of warning signs and cautionary tales to move into the Bramford in New York City. Prior tenants have exhibited strange behaviors and fellow residents of the Bramford begin to unnerve the wife, Rosemary. Rosemary's Baby is the story of a young woman drawn into the plots of a satanic cult and the upcoming Apartment 7A zooms in on the history of a somewhat passing character from that 1968 movie.

"I thought you were Victoria Vetri."

In the original, Rosemary Woodhouse meets a recovering drug addict named Terry Gionoffrio who says people mistake her for an actress all the time. (She is, in fact, played by the actress mentioned in the scene.) Terry sings the praises of their mutual friends and calls them "the most wonderful people in the world, bar none." She tells her tale of having been rescued from a life of poverty and drug addiction so that her benefactors are "like real grandparents." They even gave her a good luck charm, but anyone who's seen one of Mia Farrow's most memorable film roles can remember what becomes of this friend and who her saviors really are.

Apartment 7A now has a trailer to go along with its intriguing tagline of "Rosemary was not the first." We meet Terry before her friendship with Rosemary and, most intriguingly, before she met the Castevets who took her in. A recently-arrived aspiring dancer, she suffers a horrific injury and we see the beginning of the drug habit she kicked by the time she met Rosemary. She works hard and overcomes obstacles, but is still beet by troubles until the intervention of people connected with the Bramford. The trailer shows her growing anxiety as well as hallucinations of herself carrying a pregnancy. The poster for the film features a dazzlingly beautiful Terry being watched by a horned and sinister figure in the background.

Also starring

Our leading lady is none other than Julia Garner of Ozark and The Americans. She is known for having won the Primetime Emmy as Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series and a Golden Globe as Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Musical-Comedy or Drama Television Series for her portrayal of Ruth Langmore in Ozark. She seems well-suited for the emotional intensity of this project.

The forcefully doting "Minnie" Castevet is played by Dianne Wiest, who has won Academy Awards as Best Actress in a Supporting Roe for 1987's Hannah and Her Sisters and 1995's Bullet over Broadway. This is her first on-screen film appearance since 2020's Let Them All Talk, though she voiced Iris in My Father's Dragon and played Mariam McLusky in television's Mayor of Kingstown.

Her husband is played by Kevin McNally, known as Horace on Downton Abbey and the cantankerous Mr. Gibbs in the Pirates of the Carribean franchise. The character name of Roman is perhaps an homage to original director Roman Polanski.

James Sturgess of Across the Universe and 21 plays a theater producer who gives Terry another chance at the life she dreamed of.

Most intriguingly, Amy Leeson is listed in the cast as Rosemary. It's not clear from the trailer how much of a role she will play in this prequel, but the crossing of these two storylines is to be looked forward to.

Apartment 7A will arrive on Paramount+ on September 27, 2024.