I am participating in a 30-day challenge. This time it is all about horror! If you know anything about us here at the Fort you would know that we are hardcore horror fans. Each October we watch a movie each night in that we dub “The 31 Nights of Horror.”

Day 7: Favorite Woman in the World of Horror

There are a lot of horror movies with great women. Think of Ripley from Alien(s), Nancy from Nightmare on Elm Street, and of course Laurie from Halloween but to me one stands out among the rest.

Roman Polanski’s later work, Rosemary’s Baby, is arguably his more iconic entry into horror. But I find Repulsion more effective and powerful in how it uses the genre to explore the mental turmoil of a young woman named Carol (played superbly with wide-eyed terror by Catherine Deneuve). As Carole unravels while she’s alone in her vacationing sister’s apartment, the film descends into a hellish landscape in which the terror of her mind affects the very architecture of the world she inhabits.