Review of Repulsion (1965) by Aaron A — 07 Apr 2011

"I must get this crack mended.".

Synopsis: This film tracks the descent into madness of a fragile, sexually confused beauty parlor worker named Carol who succumbs to violent paranoia over the course of a harrowing weekend.

Repulsion is a hard film to watch. When the camera is not busy watching the main protagonist space out into a psychotic coma, it's doing it's best to make the audience uncomfortable, and it succeeds. Long moments of silence (the film is extremely light on dialogue) broken by expressionistic and surrealistic images will undoubtedly cause many viewers to jump in their seats and feel nauseated for many more years to come.

With the excellent (but extremely slow) direction of Roman Polanski and the truly chilling cinematography by Gilbert Taylor, Repulsion really gets into the mind of it's protagonist. Repulsed by the men that constantly try to take advantage of her, she soon develops psychotic tendencies and the audience is given many insights into her increasingly disturbed mind.

With haunting cinematography and sure-footed directing, Repulsion deserves comparisons to other heavy hitters of physiological horror, such as Hitchcock's Psycho.