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Movies / On DVD / Repulsion
Repulsion

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Repulsion (1965)

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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

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1 - 20 (sorted by comments; UK critics are listed first)
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An intense psychological thriller from the master of the genre.

Full Review Source: Channel 4 Film | comment Comment
09/21/07
Channel 4 Film
Top Critic Icon Top 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.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
02/09/06
Geoff Andrew
Geoff Andrew
Time Out
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Repulsion is perhaps Polanski's and Deneuve's finest hours.

Full Review Source: Edinburgh U Film Society | comment Comment
01/01/00
Keith H. Brown
Keith H. Brown
Edinburgh U Film Society

If hell is in the details, Roman Polanski has captured it here in his disturbing portrait of falling into psychosis.

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
09/21/07
Kim Newman
Kim Newman
Empire Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

One of the most frightening and disturbing pictures ever made.

Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | comment Comment
01/01/00
TV Guide's Movie Guide
Top Critic Icon Top 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.

Full Review Source: TIME Magazine | comment Comment
10/19/08
TIME Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Deneuve gives a scary and believable performance as a young woman who has never been completely integrated and who loses all sanity while we watch.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Examiner | comment Comment
01/01/00
Barbara Shulgasser
Barbara Shulgasser
San Francisco Examiner

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.

Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
05/20/03
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

No review available.

comment Comment
04/16/04
Carol Cling
Carol Cling
Las Vegas Review-Journal

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.

Full Review Source: DVDTown.com | comment Comment
07/25/09
Christopher Long
Christopher Long
DVDTown.com

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

Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | comment Comment
05/23/09
Christopher Null
Christopher Null
Filmcritic.com

Roman Polanski's1965 psychological thriller uncoils like a primordial poisonous snake disguised by unfathomable beauty that conceals its deadly feminine bite

Full Review Source: ColeSmithey.com | comment Comment
07/13/09
Cole Smithey
Cole Smithey
ColeSmithey.com

No review available.

comment Comment
12/18/02
Dan Jardine
Dan Jardine
Apollo Guide

This is an austere, scary, and timeless Grand Guignol work -- one with little dialogue.

Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | comment Comment
01/01/00
Dennis Schwartz
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

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.

Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | comment Comment
04/14/06
Ed Gonzalez
Ed Gonzalez
Slant Magazine

Repulsion is a frightening, fiercely entertaining experience that holds up to time.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
01/01/00
Edward Guthmann
Edward Guthmann
San Francisco Chronicle

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

Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com | comment Comment
07/25/09
Emanuel Levy
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com

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

Full Review Source: DVD Review | comment Comment
08/05/09
Felix Gonzalez Jr.
Felix Gonzalez Jr.
DVD Review

Polanski's best by a wide margin. The walls! The walls!

comment Comment
12/22/03
Gabe Leibowitz
Gabe Leibowitz
eCinemaCenter.com

A contemporary audience might find the horror in Repulsion occurring too little, too late, but the fun of the movie is in the details, the careful etching of the mind of a woman cracking under the strain of her alienation.

Full Review Source: Compuserve | comment Comment
01/01/00
Harvey S. Karten
Harvey S. Karten
Compuserve
 
 
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