Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30404 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-02-08
• Rating: Unrated
• Format: NTSC
• Original language: English
• Running time: 105 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
Roman Polanski was still a newcomer to the world of cinema when he unleashed this unforgettable exercise in skin-crawling terror. Repulsion was the Polish director's first film in English, but that hardly mattered: much of the movie is as wordless (and as weird) as the silent Nosferatu. The young Catherine Deneuve plays a Belgian girl stranded in '60s London, a shy beauty with no social skills. When her sister leaves their shared flat, Deneuve goes gradually, quietly, completely mad. Her world becomes Polanski's paintbox, as the devilish director distorts reality via a series of surrealistic touches (grasping hands that protrude from elastic walls) and out-and-out murderous horror. Very few films cast the kind of eerie spell that this 1965 classic achieves, and it clearly points the way toward Polanski's Rosemary's Baby. As with most of the director's work, what is unsettling is not the overt violence, but the terrifying sense of emptiness and isolation, and the boiling unease inside one's own mind. --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews

Movie is great - This DVD release is HORRIBLE
Don't buy this. Seriously. Someone is bound to release a better version. This is PAN AND SCAN, cropped at 1:33, and seems to be transferred from some sort of used tape...Like a 3/4 inch VHS. There are visible tape flutters and wrinkles throughout the film. And no it's NOT the print. The film is fine. It's the transfer. cheap, cheap, cheap.

The compression is abysmal (notice the obvious scan lines on the titles) and the sound is piss poor. How is it possible this is the only way this film is available in the US? Disgraceful.

WARNING: POSITIVELY DISGRACEFUL EDITION OF A 5-STAR FILM!!!
I just wanted to write this review and warn people to save their money. My friend bought this DVD (thank god it wasn't me!) and we were both disappointed to see that it was a horrible print, badly transferred. This DVD is disgraceful, but the movie itself gets 5 stars, of course. Just thought I'd let you know: AVOID THIS INCREDIBLY LOUSY DVD OF POLANSKI'S CLASSIC FILM AT ALL COSTS!!! If you decide to go against my advice and buy it, well... I tried to warn you! I don't usually write reviews of DVDs, preferring instead to focus on the film in question, but this was one instance where I felt it would be unfair not to say "Caveat emptor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" If you have a region-free DVD player, get the Anchor Bay UK version (available through amazon.co.uk) for a much nicer edition.

Horrible DVD release
This film deserves 5 stars, and that's what I give it. The region 1 DVD for this film is horrible. It's pan and scan (fullscreen, 1.33:1) and has poor quality. The film was shot in 1.75:1, not 1.33:1! I wish it was available in widescreen with a remastered picture. As I said: 5 stars for the movie, 1 star for the DVD.