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Repulsion

Repulsion (1965)

tomatometer

100

Average Rating: 8.9/10
Reviews Counted: 58
Fresh: 58 | 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.

100

Average Rating: 8.4/10
Critic Reviews: 8
Fresh: 8 | 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.

audience

86

liked it
Average Rating: 4/5
User Ratings: 16,238

My Rating

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

Feb 8, 2005

Royal Films International

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All Critics (58) | Top Critics (8) | Fresh (58) | Rotten (0) | DVD (11)

Roman Polanski's first English-language film is still a creepy little horror masterpiece.

July 23, 2009 Full Review Source: Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Top Critic IconTop Critic

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.

October 19, 2008 Full Review Source: TIME Magazine
TIME Magazine
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Roman Polanski's first film in English is still his scariest and most disturbing.

September 21, 2007 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader
Chicago Reader
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Deneuve, without much dialog, handles a very difficult chore with insight and tact.

September 21, 2007 Full Review Source: Variety
Variety
Top Critic IconTop Critic

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.

April 11, 2006 Full Review Source: Village Voice
Village Voice
Top Critic IconTop Critic

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.

February 9, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out
Time Out
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Roman Polanski takes us on a deeply disturbing, hallucinatory trip into Catherine Deneuve's mental breakdown in this British psychological thriller,

October 6, 2013 Full Review Source: Radio Times
Radio Times

Deneuve gives an astonishing, clinically accurate performance ...

January 5, 2013 Full Review Source: Observer [UK]
Observer [UK]

Deneuve, as the woman whose fear of sexual contact is at the base of her neurosis, has seldom been less like her icy self.

January 4, 2013 Full Review Source: This is London
This is London

A film that expertly shows without ever telling, even while the symbolism is a mite heavy handed.

January 3, 2013 Full Review Source: Little White Lies
Little White Lies

There can't be many other films which so plausibly show an entire, warped world created from a single point of view.

January 3, 2013 Full Review Source: Guardian [UK]
Guardian [UK]

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.

January 3, 2013 Full Review Source: Electric Sheep
Electric Sheep

It's been an inspiration ever since for films about claustrophobic hysteria, but not necessarily in a good way ...

January 3, 2013 Full Review Source: Daily Telegraph
Daily Telegraph

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.

December 17, 2012 Full Review Source: Total Film
Total Film

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

October 29, 2012 Full Review Source: CinePassion
CinePassion

Repulsion is a masterpiece of horror that is not to be missed and can be open to many interpretations.

October 8, 2012 Full Review Source: PopMatters
PopMatters

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.

April 2, 2011 Full Review Source: Antagony & Ecstasy
Antagony & Ecstasy

You may feel the urge to laugh out of sheer need to break the tension, and Polanski knows it.

March 5, 2011 Full Review Source: Projection Booth
Projection Booth

Its ability to conjure monsters from its heroine's id remains unparalleled.

August 5, 2009 Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com
Filmcritic.com

Repulsion wastes no time before plunging its audience into the frighteningly disturbed mindset of its central character.

August 5, 2009 Full Review Source: DVD Review
DVD Review

a riveting horror thriller, one that cuts through the simple and comforting categories of good and evil

August 4, 2009 Full Review Source: Q Network Film Desk
Q Network Film Desk

The director deploys suspense techniques with surrealistic touches -- both of which would seem dated today were they not so sharply weaved together.

July 29, 2009 Full Review Source: Film Threat
Film Threat

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]

July 28, 2009 Full Review Source: Groucho Reviews
Groucho Reviews

... a masterfully conducted portrait in madness...

July 27, 2009 Full Review Source: Seanax.com
Seanax.com

Although it cannot quite live up to its reputation, Polanski's startling psychological horror film is a bona fide genre classic.

July 27, 2009 Full Review Source: Cinefantastique
Cinefantastique

Haunting and ominous from first frame to last, Polanski's first English film is a masterpiece, a subtle horror tale about the descent into madness of an isolated, sexually repressed woman, stunningly played by Catherine Deneuve who was only 22 at the time

July 25, 2009 Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com
EmanuelLevy.Com

Audience Reviews for Repulsion

Slow and dull, the film accomplishes its main goal: to disturb. But everything is so watered down, even the most frightening parts (that only come towards the end) are not as exciting as one would hope.
November 24, 2012
Matthew Samuel Mirliani

Super Reviewer

This was made in 1965 and is still pretty impressive. The directing style is fantastic! Catherine Denevue's schizophrenia mixed in with her deep sexual impulses makes this film original and a gem.
February 11, 2012
paul o.
paul oh

Super Reviewer

    1. Colin: Well, next time you forget, maybe you'll let me know.
    – Submitted by Chris P (2 years ago)
    1. Helen Ledoux: Why did you throw Michael's things away?
    2. Carol Ledoux: I don't like them there.
    – Submitted by Chris P (2 years ago)
View all quotes (2)

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Foreign Titles

  • Ekel (DE)
  • Repulsion (1965) (UK)
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