Review of Repulsion (1965) by W. David L — 12 Feb 2011

Time hasn't helped Repulsion, mostly because much of what it did to be surprising has become standard film language for certain types of horror films. I guess that makes it the I Love Lucy of Psychological Thrillers About Terrified Agoraphobes.

Time has not hurt it in plenty of other ways. Some of its subtleties remain effective. It has a mood and a feel. As other reviews will mention, the cinematography is great. Deneuve *is* very good in a performance that you wouldn't call "fine for 45 years ago" - it's quite contemporary.

That said, for most of the movie I mainly just wanted to smack her character. I didn't sympathize with her, but having sympathetic characters is not a filmic requirement, so the dealbreaker for me was that I also didn't find her or her situation interesting to think about.

So what I got was a well made, not so engaging movie. It's certainly not bad, but I really can't recommend it, unless one is just analyzing this particular narrative form, "How do you make a movie that it mostly about a person alone in a house?" - that kind of thing.