Its ability to conjure monsters from its heroine's id remains unparalleled.
Repulsion (1965)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:44
Fresh:44
Rotten:0
Average Rating:8.8/10
Consensus: Roman Polanski's first English film follows a schizophrenic woman's descent into madness, and makes the audience feel as claustrophobic as the character.
Runtime: 1 hr 45 mins
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Synopsis: REPULSION, starring the incomparable Catherine Deneuve, was director Roman Polanski's first movie filmed in English. It chronicles the descent into schizophrenia of a sexually confused, isolated... REPULSION, starring the incomparable Catherine Deneuve, was director Roman Polanski's first movie filmed in English. It chronicles the descent into schizophrenia of a sexually confused, isolated young woman named Carol who works at a beauty parlor and shares an apartment with her sister Helen (Yvonne Furneaux). One day Helen and her boyfriend, Michael (Ian Hendry), go off on vacation together and Carol is left alone in the empty apartment, where the only sounds are the constant ticking of a clock, faucets dripping, and the invasive ringing of a telephone. Extremely paranoid, Carol refuses to let anyone in and never leaves the building herself, in effect breaking off all contact with the outside world. In this claustrophobic environment, she begins to lose her grip on reality, suffering from hallucinations of being attacked by a phantom rapist and hands reaching out from the walls to grab her. Highly acclaimed and extremely gripping, Polanski's disturbing film can be seen as a prelude to his later work in the field of psychological horror: ROSEMARY'S BABY and, especially, THE TENANT. [More]
Starring: Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, Yvonne Furneaux, Patrick Wymark
Starring: Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, Yvonne Furneaux, Patrick Wymark, James Villiers, John Fraser, Renee Houston, Valerie Taylor
Director: Roman Polanski
Director: Roman Polanski
Producer: Gene Gutowski
Composer: Chico Hamilton
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Reviews for Repulsion
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
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]
Although it cannot quite live up to its reputation, Polanski's startling psychological horror film is a bona fide genre classic.
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
A story of sexual repression of such magnitude necessarily treads on Freudian ground but Polanski resists any urge to plumb the psychological depths of his tortured protagonist.
Roman Polanski's1965 psychological thriller uncoils like a primordial poisonous snake disguised by unfathomable beauty that conceals its deadly feminine bite
its ability to conjure monsters from its heroine's id remains unparalleled
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.
Roman Polanski's first film in English is still his scariest and most disturbing.
If hell is in the details, Roman Polanski has captured it here in his disturbing portrait of falling into psychosis.
Deneuve, without much dialog, handles a very difficult chore with insight and tact.
Roman Polanski made his international name with this genuinely frightening black-and-white nightmare.
Its two-way prism of audio-visual embellishments intuits a woman's fractured psyche and catches super-cool flashes of the audience's perverse cine-desires.
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.
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 77% 77% | The Hangover |
| 88% 88% | Inglourious Basterds |
| 66% 66% | Public Enemies |
| 24% 24% | G-Force |
| 44% 44% | Night at the Museum: B… |
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 82% 82% | Paranormal Activity |
| 57% 57% | 9 |
| 44% 44% | Jennifer's Body |
| 58% 58% | A Perfect Getaway |
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