Natalie Erika James

Apartment 7A

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Terry with a demon reflected in the mirror

Rosemary’s Baby: The Prequel would have been a more obvious title for Apartment 7A, for that is what it is, a straightforward precursor movie imagining that Rosemary wasn’t the first sweet young thing to become the broodmare of Satan. If you can remember Rosemary’s Baby we were told as much in that film. And if you really really know your Rosemary’s Baby, then Julia Garner playing someone called Terry is enough to alert you as to where everything is heading. Garner, an adept at playing wide-eyed young women in a lot of trouble, does it brilliantly again as the feisty girl from Nebraska who’s come to New York to follow her dream of … Read more

Relic

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Family photo of grandma, daughter and granddaughter

Relic is a horror film that’s abnormally effective because it’s about something that’s going to happen to us all – old age (if we’re lucky) and death. As it opens Grandma Edna (Robyn Nevin) has gone missing. And so her daughter, Kay (Emily Mortimer) and granddaughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) have turned up at her house to find out what’s happened. Grandma has got to the age where forgetfulness is nibbling away at her memory, and physically she’s at the point where family members are having whispered conversations about her which Grandma isn’t party to. That doesn’t sound like a horror film, and in fact you could strip out all the horror elements from Natalie … Read more