31 Days Of Halloween: Repulsion (1965)

Hello, Bloggers, sorry I haven't reviewed anything on my blog for the past recently. I've been pretty occupied with school and such. Anyways, I will do two reviews today and potentially two tomorrow. For the first review, I will do a little-seen foreign film made by one of our finest directors, Roman Polanski. This film is the second Polanski film being reviewed this month, and is known as Repulsion.

                                 Story:
                           Repulsion is about a French manicurist living in London named Carol (Catherine Deneuve). Carol is also very sexually repressed and is repulsed by any man that tries to get close to her. While Carol's sister and her boyfriend vacation to Italy on a holiday, leaving Carol all alone in their apartment, she begins to slowly go mad and experience distressing hallucinations.

                           What I Liked About It:
                          One thing that I really liked about this film was the performance by Catherine Deneuve. What makes her performance so amazing is that she manages to mainly act with only her eyes, as she has very little dialogue, and showcase her nervousness and even her malice as she slowly descends into madness. To me, I like how the character of Carol is very complex as you can't really place her as either good or evil, and I am fascinated by characters like that.

                          Most of the film takes place in the apartment, and I liked how Polanski took that approach because it gives the film a rather claustrophobic and atmospheric scare. Especially in one scene where Carol is lying down on her bed and an illusion is created where it looks like the ceiling above her is closing in on her. So I also liked Polanski's direction as well. Plus, I thought it was interesting how the film touches on themes of sexual repression and how because sex is a part of human nature, once our main character deprives herself of it, it takes a mental toll on her.

                           What I Didn't Like About It:
                          Nothing.

                           Consensus:
                         Overall, Repulsion is a magnificent psychological chiller that works as a solid character study as well and features a tour-de-force performance from the fine actress Catherine Deneuve. Not a film for everyone, but if you are the type of viewer that likes to analyze films and their artistic measure, like myself, and you want a good horror film to watch around Halloween time, then you should definitely watch this.

Rating: 5/5