Repulsion (1965)
Average Rating: 8.8/10
Reviews Counted: 56
Fresh: 56 | Rotten: 0
Roman Polanski's first English film follows a schizophrenic woman's descent into madness, and makes the audience feel as claustrophobic as the character.
Average Rating: 8.2/10
Critic Reviews: 7
Fresh: 7 | Rotten: 0
Roman Polanski's first English film follows a schizophrenic woman's descent into madness, and makes the audience feel as claustrophobic as the character.
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Movie Info
The first English-language film of director Roman Polanski is a psychological thriller in the vein of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and his own later film Rosemary's Baby (1968). Catherine Deneuve stars as Carol Ledoux, a Belgian manicurist living with her sister, Helen (Yvonne Furneaux), in a London flat. Simultaneously attracted and repulsed by sex, Carol is a virgin who finds her sister's relationship with a married man, Michael (Ian Hendry), extremely disturbing. When her sister and
Sep 19, 1997 Limited
Feb 8, 2005
Royal Films International
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Cast
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Catherine Deneuve
Carol Ledoux -
Ian Hendry
Michael -
John Fraser
Colin -
Patrick Wymark
Landlord -
Yvonne Furneaux
Helen Ledoux -
Renee Houston
Miss Balch -
Helen Fraser
Bridget -
Valerie Taylor
Mme. Denise -
James Villiers
John -
Hugh Futcher
Reggie -
Monica Merlin
Mrs. Rendlesham -
Imogen Graham
Manicurist -
Mike Pratt
Workman -
Roman Polanski
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Repulsion Trailer & Photos
All Critics (56) | Top Critics (7) | Fresh (64) | Rotten (0) | DVD (12)
At second glance, or as often as a moviegoer can bear to peek through his knotted fingers, it is a Gothic horror story, a classic chiller of the Psycho school and approximately twice as persuasive.
Top CriticRoman Polanski's first film in English is still his scariest and most disturbing.
Deneuve, without much dialog, handles a very difficult chore with insight and tact.
The ordeal we and Polanski craved for Deneuve turned out to be just a sport, and we were the ball -- just as we'd hoped.
Still perhaps Polanski's most perfectly realised film, a stunning portrait of the disintegration, mental and emotional, of a shy young Belgian girl (Deneuve) living in London.
Prepare yourself to be demolished when you go to see it -- and go you must, because it's one of those films everybody will soon be buzzing about.
Deneuve gives an astonishing, clinically accurate performance ...
Deneuve, as the woman whose fear of sexual contact is at the base of her neurosis, has seldom been less like her icy self.
A film that expertly shows without ever telling, even while the symbolism is a mite heavy handed.
There can't be many other films which so plausibly show an entire, warped world created from a single point of view.
Polanski makes us psyche-cine intruders, able to come and go as we please. It is this that makes the film so unsettling and perversely enigmatic.
It's been an inspiration ever since for films about claustrophobic hysteria, but not necessarily in a good way ...
Filled with indelible images and punishing sound design, Repulsion casts a shadow over everything from Eraserhead to Black Swan, but there's nothing quite like the real thing.
A peerless Freudian nightmare, frequently revisited but seldom matched in its desire and terror, its visual-aural flow, and its queasy voyeuristic pleasure in seeing a frosty princess picking at her own skin
Repulsion is a masterpiece of horror that is not to be missed and can be open to many interpretations.
As psychological horror films go, there are more than a few that get the psychology better than this, but almost none that come within spitting distance of the horror.
You may feel the urge to laugh out of sheer need to break the tension, and Polanski knows it.
Its ability to conjure monsters from its heroine's id remains unparalleled.
... nothing short of a godsend for fans who have spent years enduring subpar, borderline unwatchable public domain editions.
Repulsion wastes no time before plunging its audience into the frighteningly disturbed mindset of its central character.
a riveting horror thriller, one that cuts through the simple and comforting categories of good and evil
It's hard to know how to take Roman Polanski's Repulsion (1965) at this point, and not just because of the inescapable echoes and resonances it sets off relating to his own grotesque, tragic life.
The director deploys suspense techniques with surrealistic touches -- both of which would seem dated today were they not so sharply weaved together.
Polanski dares the viewer to plunge into that eye and through the psychic rabbit hole that is its owner's increasingly unhinged personality. [Blu-ray]
Polanski doesn't explain, he just explores with imaginative detail, eerie imagery... and clinical detachment as the fragile girl slips into helpless madness.
Audience Reviews for Repulsion
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Colin: Well, next time you forget, maybe you'll let me know.
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- Helen Ledoux: Why did you throw Michael's things away?
- Carol Ledoux: I don't like them there.
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Foreign Titles
- Ekel (DE)
- Repulsion (1965) (UK)
