Repulsión

Disturbing, harrowing tale of one girls' (Catherine Deneuve) descent into madness.

Catherine Deneuve's performance is fantastic--she plays it just right. Quite an accomplishment considering she was only 22 at the time! Roman Polanski's direction, beautiful black and white photography and effective use of sound really helps the film. Ahead of it's time.

Some people have complained about being bored by this film...I'm assuming they're watching in on TV. It's true--the film doesn't play as well on TV. I was lucky enough to see it for the first time in a theatre and it scared me silly. On a big screen you're pulled into the girls' madness--I was jumpy for days afterwards.

On TV it just doesn't work. It's still good, but nowhere near as unsettling. So, if you're going to see it, try to see it on a big-screen TV. This film almost never plays at revival cinemas--a real shame. Probably Polanski's best film next to "Chinatown".

This film, the first Polanski made in English, works so well, and for so many different reasons, that I felt like I had to watch it again as soon as it ended.

From the first moments of the movie, Polanski sets up the key conflict, cutting between shots of Catherine Denuve's gorgeous face and of the things she is seeing, all of which are almost frighteningly ugly by comparison. After fifteen minutes of this, it becomes clear why Denuve's Carol is unable to cope with anything in the world around her, and why she is so dependent on her sister and her attractive female co-worker, who provide the film's only beauty other than Denuve. When her sister leaves her alone, her surroundings decay further into ugliness, sending her deeper into her madness. I loved the way that despite Carol's growing insanity, Polanski keeps going back to closeups of her face, which remains beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that no one can seem to notice that she is clearly very deranged.

The only question the film left me with is this: How could Carol possibly survived for an entire lifetime up till the point where the film began?

This is only my second comment on a film on here as normally just read others but i had to leave a short comment on this film. I consider myself pretty scare proof as I'm a massive fan of psychological horror but i just caught Repulsion on TV tonight at 1.40am alone, in the dark. As i write its now 6am as all i can think about is this film.

I have never been affected by a film as much this before. Whilst some may consider the first part rather slow i found its a wonderful set-up for what follows. I wont review it as many others already have but all i wanted to say is that this film truly haunted me, genuinely made me jump and kept me tense as hell!.....i cant put it into words

The cinematography is amazing, much better than anything current. The lead actress is astonishing to say the least and unlike other films, this film is truly disturbing. I advise watching alone, in total peace, in the dark.

I can see where lynch got many of his ideas but this is far superior.The last shot is pure genius and very unsettling.

I can honestly say this is now my favourite film of all time.

This young woman's descent into insanity is so well documented that you truly thank God that it is not you that is going through this. Leave it to Roman Polanski to scare the hell out of you! I was grieving the death of someone who was very close to me when I saw this movie, and this movie snapped me out of that grief; the awareness that it could always be worse helped. Highly recommended.

Sometimes not saying anything in a horror movie, and letting a character lose his/her mind in a setting can really get the goosebumps going, more so than with the recent 'shockers' of late that all seem to take place within a haunted house or have some kind of ghostly secret. The most frightening thing about Repulsion, Roman Polanski's first film in English (and filmed in England) is that everything that can terrify the audience is within the lead character's mind. In this case, the young Catherine Deneuve plays Carole, a part-time manicurist who spends most of her time inside of her apartment she shares with her sister. Polanski piles on the atmosphere like fudge on a sundae- we literally get thrust inside of her mind as she goes into this down-ward spiral.

It would be one thing if the film was a great success just because of Polanski's tricks with adding true fear into the audience, but Deneuve is a big factor in this too. It may be a triumph of under-acting, or even over-acting from a point of view. All through the movie she plays her paranoia and sexual frustration (if not repression) almost like a kind of doll, following orders we can't quite understand. Sometimes she interacts or sees things that are strange (i.e. a cooked and eaten rabbit; the cracks in the walls springing up), but then as the film winds into its climax, she becomes perfected into this kind of traumatized, crazed creature. She is a beautiful person who plays a not too beautiful being, but she somehow pulls it off, even better than in her role in Belle du Jour. Bottom line, if you're tired of getting disappointed with the latest horror films where unexplained phenomena in a house terrorize its main character(s), take a look at this film and see if it will leave you when you're finished with it. A+