Warning! Contains spoilers for Apartment 7A.
The fact that Apartment 7A serves as Rosemary’s Baby‘s prequel raises several questions surrounding its timeline compared to the parent film. Directed by Natalie Erika James of the Relic fame, Apartment 7A stars Julia Garner as its main character, Terry, who fatefully ends up in Rosemary’s Baby‘s central New York City Renaissance Revival apartment building. With what follows, she not only learns the dark truth about the building’s residents but also faces a dire choice that forces her to put her life on the line.
Long before Apartment 7A‘s release, Terry was portrayed as a secondary character in Rosemary’s Baby‘s narrative. Although she is not among the leads in the parent film, her sudden death sets in motion a series of events that eventually lead to Rosemary’s gradual descent into paranoia and despair. Owing to these narrative connections between the two films, many might be curious about how their timelines overlap and extend beyond each other’s stories.
Apartment 7A’s Timeline Begins Several Months Before Rosemary’s Baby
It Walks Through The Events That Lead To Terry Encountering The Castevets
Both Rosemary’s Baby and Apartment 7A are set in 1965. However, since Apartment 7A is Rosemary’s Baby‘s prequel, its narrative begins several months before the 1968 movie. In Apartment 7A‘s opening arc, its main character, Terry, breaks her ankle. The movie then cuts to four months in the future, highlighting how Terry struggles to land dancing gigs and make ends meet. This is when she eventually runs into the Castevets, who give her a place to stay in the central apartment building.
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The day Terry moves into the apartment building, she gets invited to Alan Marchand’s home, where the cult performs a satanic ritual on her. Following the ritual, she gets pregnant with the Anti-Christ, and, only days later, Lily Gardenia attacks her to stop the Anti-Christ from coming into the world. However, before Gardenia can kill her, someone murders the rogue cult member. A few days after Lily Gardenia’s demise, Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse move to her home in the central apartment building.
How Much Of Rosemary’s Baby’s Timeline Does Apartment 7A Cover?
It Only Covers a Brief Segment Of Rosemary’s Baby’s Timeline
Although the two movies do not explicitly mention their timelines, it would be fair to assume that Terry learns the truth about the Castevets’ true motives a few days, or, at most, a few weeks after Lily dies and the Woodhouses move in. This would explain why she initially praises the Castavets when she meets Rosemary and even seems quite happy when she meets her in the basement’s laundry. However, within a few days after her second encounter with Rosemary in the basement, Terry seemingly realizes that the building’s residents are up to no good.
Since Rosemary’s pregnancy progresses unusually fast in the original book, it is hard not to believe that
Rosemary Baby
‘s timeline extends a few weeks beyond
Apartment 7A
‘s.
As seen in Rosemary’s Baby, Terry’s narrative ends with her death, and the Castevets only target Rosemary after Terry’s demise. Therefore, it seems like Rosemary’s Baby‘s second arc begins somewhere around Apartment 7A‘s ending. Since Rosemary’s pregnancy progresses unusually fast in the original book, it is hard not to believe that Rosemary Baby‘s timeline extends a few weeks beyond Apartment 7A‘s.
