Repulsion

Screening on 35mm

One of the most frightening films ever made, Roman Polanski's (Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown) brilliant tale of psychological horror stars Catherine Deneuve as a sexually repressed beautician whose spiral into madness leads to murder. Carol (Deneuve) is a beautiful, yet extremely withdrawn, young manicurist who shares a London apartment with her more worldly sister (Yvonne Furneaux, La Dolce Vita). When her sister leaves on vacation with her married lover (Ian Hendry), Carol, left alone to reflection her own emotional and sexual frigidity, becomes progressively and dangerously dysfunctional.

As the Pandora's Box that is her psyche opens up, the apartment becomes a surreal and terrifying prison of her own imagining. Carol begins to hallucinate and becomes physically paralyzed. Her madness reaches a dizzying crescendo, climaxing in unspeakable acts of depravity. Polanski's first English-language film was both a commercial and critical success, winning the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and drawing favorable critical comparisons to Hitchcock's Psycho.

Screening as part of Waverly Midnights: It's All in Your Head