Earlier this yr, “The First Omen” arrived in theaters, providing us a prequel to the 1976 Satanic horror pic “The Omen.” In principle, this seemed like a foul concept: a lazy strategy to cash-in on model consciousness with out providing something new to the horror style. However shock, shock! “The First Omen” turned out to be surprisingly good, particularly for a studio mandated horror prequel. It might not have set the field workplace on hearth, however within the sturdy fingers of filmmaker Arkasha Stevenson, “The First Omen” was sensible, charming, and most of all, scary. Now, right here comes “Residence 7A,” which is following an identical components: It is one other prequel to a devil-themed horror basic, on this case Roman Polanski’s “Rosemary’s Child.” My knee-jerk response was to be skeptical to this whole endeavour, however I used to be additionally skeptical about “The First Omen,” and that turned out to be an exquisite shock. May it occur once more?
Sadly, lightning has not struck twice, and “Residence 7A” is all the pieces I feared “The First Omen” could be. It is bland, it is unscary, and worst of all, it is pointless. To be honest, “Residence 7A” has a lot larger footwear to fill. “The Omen” is a enjoyable horror film, however it’s additionally sort of foolish and trashy (in an pleasant means). “Rosemary’s Child,” in distinction, is among the biggest horror motion pictures of all time — a sublime, good movie that expertly attracts you into its story. Polanski, remaining very devoted to Ira Levin’s novel, crafted a horror film that is nearly deceptively easy and stripped-down — apart from some dream sequences (that are not precise dream sequences, they’re actually occurring!), “Rosemary’s Child” retains conventional horror imagery off display screen.
And but, by way of the ability of suggestion (“He has his father’s eyes!”), the movie is terrifying. A lot of the horror arises not a lot by way of the specter of the supernatural, however from the best way the primary character, Mia Farrow’s Rosemary Woodhouse, is mercilessly gaslit by actually everybody round her, together with her husband, by way of nearly all the movie. “Rosemary’s Child” additionally makes us complicit in that gaslighting: in hindsight, we all know that Rosemary was appropriate — her neighbors had been Satanists and her husband was in league with them. However the movie, and Farrow’s efficiency, each work onerous to make us query all the pieces. I rewatched “Rosemary’s Child” in preparation for “Residence 7A,” and was significantly struck at how Farrow performs the lead function, particularly because the movie attracts to its chilling conclusion: when she rattles off the evil conspiracy she thinks is constructing towards her, she sounds loopy, although she’s proper.
“Residence 7A” incorporates none of this magnificence. “The First Omen” benefited from correctly inventing a brand new predominant character to observe, which in impact saved issues shocking. Positive, having seen “The Omen,” we knew the place the story was headed, however the path to get there was shrouded in thriller. That is not the case for “Residence 7A,” which focuses on a personality from “Rosemary’s Child” whose destiny is fairly nicely established. Who is that this film for, precisely? Individuals who have not even heard of “Rosemary’s Child”? That may’t be the case, as “Residence 7A” is loaded with callbacks to Polanski’s basic. However the one means something right here actually packs a punch is for those who’ve by no means seen the movie that impressed it.