'Apartment 7A': 'Relic' Director Natalie Erika James Teaming With John Krasinski For New Horror Film

Natalie Erika James, director of the acclaimed indie horror pic Relic, has a new project on the way. James will direct Apartment 7A for Paramount Players, with A Quiet Place filmmaker John Krasinski on board to produce. Unfortunately, we really don't know a whole lot about the project – just that it's being described as a "psychological thriller," which is usually just big studio code for "horror," because, for reasons I will never understand, bigger studios are afraid to call horror movies horror movies. THR is reporting the news about the new Natalie Erika James horror movie Apartment 7A, while also adding that plot details are being kept secret – something that drives me bonkers. Give us some crumbs, Hollywood! In any case, the news that James is making a new horror film (or "psychological thriller," as they're officially calling it) is bound to get some attention, because the filmmaker's feature debut – Relic – was met with high praise. Reviewing for /Film, Marisa Mirabal called it "A Haunted House Movie Audiences Won't Soon Forget."

Now here's the part of the story where I become a wet blanket and say I didn't love Relic nearly as much as everyone else. Don't get me wrong – it's a good movie! I just didn't quite get the effusive praise everyone else showered onto it. That said, it was well-directed enough for me to be interested in seeing what James is doing next, and what she's doing next is Apartment 7A. And having a heavy-hitter like John Krasinski producing the pic will likely ensure it's even bigger than Relic. 

In Relic, a woman returns to her family home after her mother goes missing, bringing her adult daughter along with her. The house is full of cryptic Post-it notes, and worse than that, covered in some sort of mysterious black mold. Things only get weirder when the missing mother returns the next day and begins acting...different. Here's a trailer.

While I sure would like to know what the heck Apartment 7A is about, James hinted at her future work during an interview with Collider, saying:

"I'm writing a few things and they're all subgenres of horror and they're all very personal. I don't know how else to write a film because I just feel like you spend, you know, minimum of two years of your life working on something; you have to care about it that much, surely. So yeah, all three of them are – and they don't have to be personal experiences. It's more like personal questions or personal fears, and for me, filmmaking is a great way to just ask those big philosophical questions in your life."