Curator Watchlist
A stark, psychologically corrosive descent into isolation and sexual dread, Repulsion is one of the key early works of modern art-horror. Its power comes less from plot than from atmosphere, performance, and the way it turns an apartment into a mind in collapse.
Where to watch: Buy
Tue · 1h 45m
Director: Roman Polanski
Starring: Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, John Fraser
Beautiful young manicurist Carole suffers from androphobia (the pathological fear of interaction with men). When her sister and roommate, Helen, leaves their London flat to go on an Italian holiday with her married boyfriend, Carole withdraws into her apartment. She begins to experience frightful hallucinations, her fear gradually mutating into madness.
Roman Polanski
Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, John Fraser
A stark, psychologically corrosive descent into isolation and sexual dread, Repulsion is one of the key early works of modern art-horror. Its power comes less from plot than from atmosphere, performance, and the way it turns an apartment into a mind in collapse.
Repulsion is a masterclass in subjective horror: the camera, sound, and production design all seem to rot alongside Carole’s mind. What begins as social withdrawal becomes a nightmare of intrusion, bodily disgust, and fractured reality, with Catherine Deneuve giving a performance that is both fragile and unnervingly sealed off.
The film’s apartment setting is crucial. Polanski turns domestic space into a pressure chamber, where ordinary objects, cracks in the wall, and passing noises become extensions of panic. The result is less a monster movie than a study of dread, one that anticipates later psychological horror while remaining distinctly of its time.
It is also a film that invites difficult conversation. Its depiction of fear and violation is potent, but so is the unease around who is telling the story and how. Even so, as cinema of interior collapse, it remains remarkably effective and influential.
sophie yoshino (4★) · 4263 likes
Repulsion is what I feel towards this director
CinemaVoid 🏴☠️ (4★) · 3296 likes
This is an effective movie because who else but a predator could capture on film the sheer terror a woman feels when she’s abused.
Andrew Rogers (4★) · 2154 likes
Throw out that fucking rabbit jesus christ
nico ⛽️ (4★) · 1974 likes
a polanski film where the villain is men… the call is coming from inside the house
anna nomaly (3★) · 1278 likes
Hell de jour.
A foundational study in psychological terror, fractured identity, and domestic unease.
Elegant, ambiguous horror built on repression, atmosphere, and a destabilized point of view.
Dreamlike isolation and a collapsing sense of reality make it a strong tonal companion.
Another classic of subjective dread, using architecture and sound to trap its protagonist.
A corrosive chamber drama where space, power, and psychological control unravel together.
A tense, unsettling study of captivity and obsession with a similarly intimate menace.
For viewers drawn to psychological fracture, silence, and identity under pressure.
A nightmarish descent into artistic and mental disintegration with a similarly haunted mood.
Domestic paranoia and bodily dread in a polished, deeply unsettling urban setting.
Bleak, oppressive atmosphere and moral decay pushed to a feverish extreme.
A gothic-tinged psychological thriller with a repressed, decaying atmosphere.
Grief, perception, and dread are fused into one of the great atmospheric thrillers.
psychological breakdown, female isolation, sexual paranoia, claustrophobia, subjective reality, urban alienation, body horror, mental illness
psychological horror, art-house thriller, 1960s cinema, claustrophobic, female-centered, hallucinations, urban isolation, slow-burn, expressionist imagery, sexual menace