The Shining currently dominates Rosemary's Baby 81–19

The Verdict Decade Duel

This matchup has 16 votes — still early. The picture may shift as more people weigh in.

The Overlook Hotel as Kubrick designed it — corridors that can't connect to the rooms they lead to, windows that face walls, a geography that contradicts itself — is the film's actual villain, a building that absorbs its occupants the way a body absorbs a virus. Polanski's Castevet apartment generates dread from a different kind of architecture: the thin walls, the too-friendly neighbors, the layout that makes privacy impossible. Both directors use physical space as the primary tool of horror. The gap says the impossible space outperforms the invasive one. The hotel that can't exist is more frightening than the apartment that won't leave you alone.