laetitiapayombo I keep in mind that this movie was released in 1965. But in 1962 Sam Peckinpah did Ride the high Country. So don't tell me that it was another time! After watching the extraordinary performance of Isabelle Adjani in Possession of Andrzej Zulawski (1981), Catherine Deneuve doesn't impress me. The movie is nice, Deneuve is nice, everything is good. It is a nice movie, where we can feel the future work of Roman Polanski, especially in The Tenant (1976). Nice movie, nice direction, nice music, great photography and very fun scenario.

Jerewolf_Horrorhound I understand that some people enjoy hidden meanings and "art" films, but learn how to combine an entertaining plot with your hidden message, much like Kubrick did with 'The Shining'. That is, if you want to make a truly good film that reaches people on different levels and different interests. Repulsion is just so aimless and uninteresting. It's as drab and boring as the black and white. Yeah, it was shot well. Yeah, the acting works, but you have no plot to follow other than your own. You take nothing away from this movie other than speculation and uncertainty.

quridley A technically impressive but problematic and shallow character study about sexual abuse. Repulsion is hugely influential on everything from giallos to Suspiria to the early American slashers (Halloween, Elm Street) to Twin Peaks to Black Swan to It Follows. Its a favorite art-horror film and hailed as an early "masterpiece" from Roman Polanski.You can't separate Polanski's statutory rape of a female child from whatever statement he made in Repulsion. Polanski delves deep into the Daddy Issues of a sexually damaged young girl and critics praised him for this early examination of "rape culture", but there's a clear criminal fetishization of his female protagonist's emotional weakness and sexual unavailability that is highly disturbing. Its disgusting that she is made sympathetic by surviving a highly unrealistic/convenient sexual attack and must be rescued by a father figure. This film is less about women and their victimhood by men than Polanski's romantic dream of sexually tortured young girls.I can't call it a masterpiece for its troubling psychology and that its derivative of the even better horror films "Marnie" and "Carnival of Souls". Polanski was a post-modernist who reinterpreted films for an art-house crowd and often got too much credit for simply making the films more cynical and violent (As if the influence of De Palma and Tarantino wasn't clear enough).The film inspired 100 great films made by well-meaning male "feminists" of damsels acting out man-fearing fantasies, but how many are actually helpful to women? Are they anti-rape or do they simply exploit rape to set up violence in a faux-intellectual/faux-moralist style? I mean the purpose of Repulsion was to show a man's view of man's abuse of women. Gradually we ended up with complex and liberated heroines fighting off male oppression and maybe we owe films like Repulsion with starting the topic in film. But that doesn't mean these film aren't offensive or dated or reprehensible.With Repulsion, Polanski laid the template for a new style of oppressive, paranoid, psycho-sexual horror and influenced everything that came later. Its still pretty effective although its had its ideas perfected by Polanski and others. But Repulsion is probably more tasteful, restrained, personal and ultimately creepy given the revelations about Polanski. The film remains a twisted yet important piece of cinema history like its creator.

Eric Stevenson I really had no idea that this was even supposed to be a horror movie, but it certainly becomes apparent after awhile. I love this movie because of how unpredictable it is. Possibly the most interesting thing about this movie is how a lot of it is left open to interpretation. It's not clear exactly how much of what we see actually happened. It's most certain that Carol killed some people, but it's mostly quite vague. It's weird, because there's this one scene where she's putting the mirror to the medicine cabinet back. I've seen enough movies to know that it's going to show someone in the reflection, but you know what? I was STILL genuinely frightened when that happened! Another shocking moment was when you first get a graphic depiction of her killing someone.It really is all quite unexpected. It's great how we get scenes of the other characters in their lives which doesn't really affect the plot. It just comes off as very realistic. The music is haunting too. I swear that one guy looks like Woody Allen. What I also love is the film's usage of closeups. A lot of time this comes off as obnoxious. Maybe it's just because this was one of the earliest films to use it, but it was definitely effective here. The moments of silence in the film are also very unnerving and create great atmosphere. Was there some deeper political meaning to this? An attack on feminism? I also love how it ends the same way it begins with the focus on the eye. You originally think the woman with the eye is going to be the main character.It's just a great psychological thriller from beginning to end and keeps getting better. It's not quite as good as "Rosemary's Baby" but it's close. It's just interesting to see horror movies get more graphic as 1968 approaches when we first got our movie ratings. We slowly earned them. Maybe tame by today's standards, but definitely well written and acted. I guess I'm not that much into Roman Polanski, but with these great films, you could call me a fan. ****