The Rosemary's Babyverse expands with a prequel!

[Willie Oleson]

Apartment 7A

It would be cool if it also featured stuff from the other films in Polanski's "Apartment Trilogy". Catherine Deneuve could have played one of the neighbours.

 

[Crimson]

Ambivalent feelings about this. I like Julia Garner and especially Dianne Wiest and the film looks to be, at minimum, stylish and reasonably entertaining.

Prequels like this usually feel more like archaeology than creativity. Not once have I ever even pondered what happened prior to ROSEMARY'S BABY; that's a thoroughly self-contained story. On top of that, this looks like a quasi-remake. Unless the creators are bold enough to invalidate ROSEMARY, it feels like the ending here is already foregone.

 

[tommie]

Is it a prequel?

It looks like it would be post-Baby. But the terror of the movie was that we didn't know if it was just a paranoid mother or if it was truly Satan's baby.

 

[Crimson]

Is it a prequel?

It's been reported as a prequel. Presumably the Castevets attempted to demonically impregnant other young women before being successful with Rosemary. Seems like the story would be even more unnecessary as a sequel, since the Castevets were successful in ROSEMARY.

 

[Willie Oleson]

Prequels like this usually feel more like archaeology than creativity

I can understand the temptation to play with a certain universe but it usually doesn't amount to much more than fan fiction. Apartment 7A is going to rely heavily on atmosphere and production values, I guess.

Unless the creators are bold enough to invalidate ROSEMARY, it feels like the ending here is already foregone

As they did in The First Omen, which makes it more like a remake than a prequel (and they did remake The Omen's most memorable scene, which makes the project look kinda insecure).
How "sacrilegious" the prequel/sequel/remake looks depends on my personal emotional attachment, and I didn't dislike The First Omen for that particular reason.

 

[Crimson]

To my surprise, I found the movie was shockingly good; darn near on par with ROSEMARY. It follows the beats of the original, but with enough originality to not feel derivative. The story is even more entwined than I expected and might even enhance the original. My biggest surprise is that the movie totally avoids cheap, modern scares and sticks with atmosphere and weird creepiness.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Lenny Bernstein's apartment in The Dakota -- it seems lovely:

But is The Dakota haunted, or scarred by evil? Joan Crawford made a lobby cameo in the first film (excised from the final cut) and then Lennon was gunned-down by an anti-Christal figure (horoscopically).

And their top floor refuses to sell, despite being on the market for ages and the price being slashed to 40% of the original asking price.

 

[Willie Oleson]

it seems lovely

And very garish.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

And very garish.

That strikes you as garish? It's rusty and nice -- at least, it appeals to my particular taste. (Although it may be a bit out of my range).

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

But is The Dakota haunted, or scarred by evil? Joan Crawford made a lobby cameo in the first film (excised from the final cut) and then Lennon was gunned-down by an anti-Christal figure (horoscopically).

And their top floor refuses to sell, despite being on the market for ages and the price being slashed to 40% of the original asking price.

Should Crawford's cameo have been cut out of the final edit? Was it filmed just to generate publicity, Mommie Dearest exploited for cheap media coverage?

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

A 2012 doc on the making of the original film:

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

In the movie, 1966 is Year One. That works for me.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Is it weird that a novel that has a character named "Roman Castavets" is made into a film directed by someone named Roman co-starring an actor named Cassavetes?

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I've asserted this my entire adult life, but when a movie is really well done, it can tap into an objective frequency -- presumably by accident -- that none of us can completely understand.

As with the 1968 movie version of ROSEMARY'S BABY: the novel has a character named "Roman Castavet," and the movie is later directed by someone named Roman co-starring an actor named Cassavetes.

Not only that, but a year after the film came out, Rosemary (not that common a name) LaBianca is murdered with her husband by the Manson Family just two days after they killed Roman Polanski's wife, Sharon, and stabbed her and her unborn baby to death. (Never mind the scene in the kitchen where Mia Farrow eats that glop (makes one think of Susan Atkins tasting Sharon Tate's blood after she killed her) and the fact that Farrow approached the baby's crib with a butcher knife.

Weird coincidences.

Same with 1967's IN COLB BLOOD, an excellent movie based on Capote's fact-based novel, in which Robert Blake blows away an entire farmhouse family, including a daughter name "Bonnie" -- and more than 30 years later, Blake would blow away in real life a wife named "Bonnie."