Apartment 7A (2024)

Stop reading this review right now if you want to enjoy ANY part of this movie. Seriously, I am not aiming to spoil anything, but Apartment 7A should be much more enjoyable for those who know absolutely nothing about it until they start to piece the familiar elements together for themselves.

Consider yourself duly warned.

Julia Adams plays a young dancer named Terry. Despite a hunger for career success, Terry ends up injuring herself in a way that could possibly spell the ruination of her dream. Terry, aiming to find ways to get herself in front of the right people and grasp whatever last opportunity she might get, does have one apparent stroke of good luck. She encounters an elderly couple (played by Dianne Wiest and Kevin McNally) who end up offering her somewhere to stay, as well as much more. But what do they want in return?

Directed by Natalie Erika James, who has done much better work elsewhere, and also co-written by James, Christian White, and Skylar James, this is a disappointingly unscary and predictable feature that is seriously hampered by the fact that viewers will know where things are going. If you somehow avoided the poster/marketing imagery, which clues you in on the fact that this is a prequel to what many view as a classic horror, and somehow don’t recognise the names and behaviour of the characters helping our lead, then there’s a chance that you might enjoy this a bit more. I suspect you will still find it quite dull though, and it’s a shame that none of the writers could figure out a way to make this anything more than a pale and insipid tribute to the film that birthed it.

Despite the weak material they have to work with, the cast are almost all doing very good work. Adams is a good lead, even if this isn't her best work, but a number of scenes are completely stolen by Wiest and McNally (with Wiest, in particular, reminding me of how much I miss her in major movie roles). Jim Sturgess is decent, playing the man who can make or break Terry's dancing career, and Marli Siu, playing a friend named Annie, gets to continue building a nicely varied filmography of interest to those who took notice of her about a decade ago.

There is at least one other recent horror movie that this reminded me of, and I didn't like that one either (The First Omen), BUT this is a slight improvement. Maybe it's because my memory of Rosemary's Baby is a bit hazy (yes, this is a prequel to Rosemary's Baby, I did warn you not to read further if you didn't know anything about the film before now), or maybe there were a handful of moments here that didn't feel like people just marking off a checklist. Either way, this was watchable, but who would choose to ever rewatch it when you can just revisit Rosemary's Baby?

4/10

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Our Ladies (2021)

Based on a book, "The Sopranos", by Alan Warner, Our Ladies is a terrific, feel-good, jaunt around Edinburgh in the 1990s, allowing viewers to have fun watching the exploits of a bawdy group of convent schoolgirls. It calls to mind a number of other, equally fine films, from The Trouble With Angels to Heaven Help Us, and more recent Scottish fare like The Angel's Share.

Orla (Tallulah Greive) is held up as an example of the miraculous power of god, thanks to a trip to Lourdes that seems to have helped her recover from leukaemia, but she really wants to test her luck and get one more "miracle" while on a day trip with her school choir to Edinburgh. She is supported in this plan by a group of friends. There's Finnoula (Abigail Lawrie), Chell (Rona Morison), Kylah (Marli Siu), Manda (Sally Messham), and Kay (Eve Austin). Not that these girls are all friends with one another - things change throughout the movie, and Kay starts off very much as the goody-two-shoes outsider of the group - but they're all happy to keep Orla company, and to maybe make their own unforgettable experience while running free through Auld Reekie.

Directed by Michael Caton-Jones, a bit of a veteran with an equal amount of good and bad throughout his filmography, Our Ladies is, in many ways, very standard stuff, which doesn't make it any less enjoyable. It's almost refreshing that the script, co-written by Caton-Jones and Alan Sharp, weaves between predictable, but satisfying, moments and a humour and attitude that keeps us firmly in the 1990s. Updating the source material could have been entirely possible, but it somehow feels all the better for being set when it is, with the girls equally oblivious to how much the entire world will change around them as they are to how much their own lives can change once their schooldays are finished.

Bittersweet in a few different ways, there's a perfect balance of reality and optimism on display here. These characters have seen so many people around them become stuck, and this has given the impression that it's hard to really break away from their home town and make a better life. Thankfully, it's also strengthened their resolve to do just that, and the trip to Edinburgh is both a time to try as many new experiences as possible and a time to dip their toes into a lake of freedom that they hope to swim in for a long time as they move further into full adulthood.

Things are helped massively by the talented cast. Greive is the heart of the film, and she's a lovely, sweet, presence. In contrast, both Siu and Messham play characters who bristle whenever things change at a pace they're not necessarily ready for, one wanting to lead the way and one just not wanting to be left behind. Morison and Austin are very good, handling their different issues in different ways, and Lawrie plays her part well, the character with arguably the most potential to realise her ambitions, without ever coming across as too patronising or smug. You also get a wonderful small role for Kate Dickie (as Sister Condron), someone I always enjoy watching onscreen.

There are mis-steps, with the plot sometimes feeling a bit overcrowded, one or two moments a bit too neat, and some scenes showing sides of characters that make them much more difficult to like, but the good far outweighs the bad here. And the good includes a beautiful ending that breaks away from the style of everything preceding it, giving you a goosebump-raising rendition of a wonderful song and a cameo appearance that will be sure to put a big grin on your face.

8/10

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Anna And The Apocalypse (2017)

Written by Alan McDonald and the late Ryan McHenry (expanding upon his 2011 short, Zombie Musical), Anna And The Apocalypse is a fun time for people who can accept that it mixes some gore gags with teen drama, a bit of comedy, some musical numbers, and a wee bit of added Scottishness. It's a good film, almost a great one (and many have already showered it with love as they watch and rewatch it while singing along with the songs), and one I was happy to finally see a little while ago, and then buy on DVD. Some of the goodwill towards it MAY have been built up by some of that special film festival atmosphere and the attitudes of those involved (having heard director John McPhail in conversation a few times now, I find the guy hilarious and wonderful) but I don't think that should take away from the fact that the film still had to be good enough to win people round when it started to "do the rounds".

Anna Shepherd (Ella Hunt) is the Anna of the title, which means she's going to be right there in the middle of a horrible zombie epidemic. At Christmas. It breaks out around her before she realises what is happening, leading to her initially seeking shelter in her workplace, the local bowling alley. But she won't be alone. Alongside her will be her best friend, John (Malcolm Cumming), and an assorted mixed bag of characters including Steph (Sarah Swire), Chris (Christopher Leveaux), and eventually Nick (Ben Wiggins). All of them have different ways of dealing with the situation and different motivations. Some just want to survive, some seem to have fun killing zombies, and some still hope to be reunited with loved ones. Mark Benton is Anna's father, who ends up stuck in her school with a horrible headmaster (played by Paul Kaye) and other survivors, including Lisa (Chris's partner, played by Marli Siu).

Considering the relatively small budget that this must have had, Anna And The Apocalypse is a film that looks and feels very nicely put together. The quality of the sound and camerawork is excellent throughout, if sometimes a bit rough around the edges when it comes to some of the FX work and the cheats used to imply a bigger picture just offscreen, and the only major gripe I have with is the lack of choreography that feels creative enough in many of the musical numbers. Even then, I understand the time and money needed to work on these things so it's not something I find unforgivable. Don't expect this to be The Greatest Showman with zombies and you should be okay.

For most of my movie reviews I tend to work through the various performances from the main cast members to highlight any great, or very poor, work. I'm not going to do that here. It feels as if it would be unfair. Not everyone is on quite the same level, that's all I will say, but most at least get a moment in which they shine, or have a way of working with the others that shows why they were picked for their role. Okay, I'll say that Hunt is great in the lead role, and that Cumming is so likeable that it's almost sickening, dammit, but you'll just have to see how you feel about everyone else when you watch the movie.

I'm also not going to grade every song on the soundtrack. I wish a few of them were a bit catchier but, as I have said before, an original musical is bloody hard to get right. The fact that this film includes such varied joys as "Hollywood Ending" (the standout, I think most people would agree), "Turning My Life Around", "Soldier At War", "It's That Time Of Year" and "The Fish Wrap" (the latter two both make me laugh hard) proves that it's got enough to have you tapping your toes and singing along, once you learn the words.

The script may not be as jam-packed or hilarious as it could be, especially if you don't have the penchant for cheesy gags that I do, but it admirably weaves together everything that it makes time for, scatters plenty of references throughout (probably deliberately, but one or two may be coincidental), and unabashedly aims for some emotional punches that most other movies in this bracket wouldn't even attempt. It also makes great use of Christmas elements without making every single scene bright red and green and overstuffed with Santas and elves.

Will you love this? Maybe, maybe not. I hope you will at least enjoy it, especially if you're a British viewer after something home-grown. It's a film that you have to meet halfway, that's the way I see it. The opening scenes may put some off but once it gets going then you're in for a good time, and then you start to grow attached to the characters, the humour starts to work, and it ends up being a little gem that everyone involved can feel rightly proud of.

7/10

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