Immersive Horror in Rear Window

Rear Window builds on using Jeff as a stand-in for the moviegoer until the climax, where the villain directly attacks the audience.

Throughout Rear Window, Jeff watches his neighbors, and is shown reacting to them, much like the audience of a movie. The windows of his apartment frame the action just like the frame of a movie screen. Jeff and his friends look on from their impenetrable fortress, separate from most of the action. Most of the time, the vignettes they observe are not worth meddling with, so their disconnect from that world is not a problem. Except for the suspected murder by Mr. Thorwald of Mrs. Thorwald.

As the tension builds in the story across the courtyard, Jeff and his girlfriend advance their own story as well. Lisa and Jeff share their first scene before the murder and by the end of it they're about to break up. The strained relationship between them continues to become even more strained until, in a creepy twist, they begin to fall back in love over their common interest in the murder. It's easy for them to become interested when it feels so distant.

They feel safe in the apartment, particularly Jeff, who hasn't physically exited his apartment in six weeks. The courtyard separating him and his neighbors is a moat. He feels free to try and meddle in Thorwald's affairs without consequence, as long as he stays in his castle. However, we see the horror on Jeff's face when Lisa crosses over. This far into the movie, we have become familiar with Jeff as our proxy. We take cues from him on how to react. If we never saw Jeff's reactions to Lisa in Thorwald's apartment, we would be at somewhat of a loss and the scene would be less tense--he coerces us into fear.

The scariest moment of Rear Window is when Thorwald crosses the moat and enters Jeff's world. Jeff denies that it's even possible until the moment Thorwald comes lumbering in. It's incredibly unsettling to feel as if the monster is there with us in the room. Thorwald attacks not only Jeff but he attacks the audience. There's the sense in the movie that our only entry point to this story--Jeff--could be killed. It's an unprecedented horror that Hitchcock constructs. And it's way better than 3D.