I love this movie so much

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

From my favorite movies..

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

This is often known as 'Roman Polanski's Repulsion', so inter-twined is the director and this piece of work. Catherine Deneuve plays listless Carol, a stunning blond who acts like the dowdiest wallflower you could meet. She lives with her sister Helen (Yvonne Furneaux), married boyfriend Michael (Ian Hendry) and is pursued - without much success - by Colin (John Fraser). The attention to minutiae in the dilapidated building is not dissimilar to the location in Polanski's 'The Tenant (1976)'.In fact, that is not the only similarity - Carol could be a relation of the other film's central Trelkovsky character; she even knocks heads with Colin as Trelkovsky does with Isabelle Adjani's Stella in a similar scene in the later film. Equally, her comparable descent from being merely preoccupied to full paranoia to the point of hallucination adds to this exploration into her increasingly fragile mental state.As a shocking tale of someone sliding into insanity, I found this effective, but unfairly, I feel it has dated in a way that 'The Tenant' has not. It is still a persuasive and occasionally unnerving depiction of madness. Deneuve is very good in it, as is the rest of the cast, and Polanski makes the most of her increasing physical and mental isolation.

One of Roman Polanski's finer works, this film is an almost perfect blend between Rosemary's Baby and Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Polanski uses this horror element in order to convey a messages of both sexuality and childhood trauma (which is a bit ironic since he raped a child himself) and although it isn't exactly subtle the fluidity of which these messages are conveyed, aided by some truly haunting visuals makes for nothing but a good time.

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.

This is my third film by Roman Polanski, the others being Chinatown (1974) and Rosemary's Baby (1968) (I barely count Rosemary's Baby (1968) because I remember almost nothing from it). I still have only a very vague idea of his style but thus far, his directing has not disappointed me.The issues that Repulsion (1965) has are not in the directing, although the pacing could've been better. For me, it's in the screenplay itself. I expected this movie to explore themes like sex, sexism, and other things of this nature. But after seeing it, I don't think this movie actually explored anything. Perhaps it was trying to say something about human nature. Perhaps it was sending a message about men. But I can't help but to think about Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire (1987). My biggest complaint in my review of that film was that it had an interesting concept, but it didn't seem to have anything else. No themes, ideas, or things of that nature. And I think the exact same applies here.This aside, Repulsion (1987) is a fairly good movie. The acting is good for the most part, the cinematography is great, and the execution of psychological horror is incredible for any decade, let alone the 60's. Very few classic horror films have ever managed to disturb me like they did to the people who saw them in theaters, but this one actually had some good and original scares.Overall, I'm glad I saw it and I would recommend. I wouldn't, however, consider it a great film.