Roman Polanski‘s 1965 Repulsion is one of the highest rated horror films of all time, the only other horror film on my list of 100ish days of Summer are Eyes Without A Face, Aliens, Let the Right One In, Jaws, The Exorcist, Psycho, and depending on who you ask, also Vertigo and Rear Window. Although I must disagree, even as a seasoned movie watcher, from classics to b-rated movies, I appreciate all decent forms of cinematic-art, and I went in with pretty high hopes for Repulsion. I actually had downloaded it months before I decided to do this blogathon, and just hadn’t gotten around to it.
But the film is slow-paced for today’s audience and it relies on jumps far too much to even try to hold your attention between jumps. And you don’t become invested at all with ANY of the characters. And please, don’t think that I’m not a fan of Roman Polanski, because that would be a lie, I truly enjoyed Chinatown and his second installment of his “Horrors of living in an Apartment” trilogy: Rosemary’s Baby, but I also read the novel before hand. But there is just a huge disconnect to what must have been in his head, what main actress Catherine Deneuve was trying to portray, and how it aged over the years, because this film is a dud for this buff. The only part of the movie that held any sort of my interest was when a co-worker found a human heart in Carol’s (Deneuve) purse. And then did nothing about it.
The movie relies heavily on music, symbolism, hallucinations, and movement, with hardly any dialogue, it expects you to jump to conclusions about the characters and the plot because the acting is terrible. I know Carol is suppose to be aloof and broken, which eventually leads to her *spoiler alert* murdering spree, but I think Catherine just doesn’t deliver. As simple was watching a woman stare blankly all the time.
“Symbolism”
Repulsion did nothing for me or my movie resume, aside from the fact that it is the first film to every present a woman having an orgasm, even if it was only audibly. Oh and that it, you know, represents what a woman becomes after being sexually abused, so it does have that going for it. Skip this one over and watch Rosemary’s Baby or even This is the End if you want a horror movie based around men tormenting somebody in someone’s home, because Hell, at least then, we have the Devil as a plausible explanation.
