Trailer
Plot summary
At a London beauty salon, Carol Ledoux, a shy Belgian manicurist, works and says little to anyone, and at home she shares a flat with her older sister Helen. A suitor named Colin pursues her, but she cannot return his interest. She is troubled by Helen's affair with a married man, Michael, by his razor and toothbrush left in her bathroom glass, and by the sounds of the couple at night. When Helen and Michael leave for a holiday in Italy, Carol stays behind and locks herself in the flat. Alone, she hears footsteps outside her bedroom and sees cracks open in the walls, and she misses days of work at the salon.
Cast
- Monica Merlinas Mrs. Rendlesham
- Hugh Futcheras Reggie
- Imogen Grahamas Manicurist
Show all 14 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Repulsion (1965)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Roman Polanski treated Yvonne Furneaux harshly while shooting Repulsion; when producer Michael Klinger objected, Polanski replied that Furneaux was too nice, and that he had to make her into a bitch every day because she was playing one.
- Polanski was so meticulous that producer Michael Klinger watched him shoot a simple frame of Catherine Deneuve's hand twenty-seven times; the overrun pushed the budget from £65,000 to about £95,000.
- Polanski said the screenplay he wrote with Gérard Brach was inspired by a woman they both knew, who he later learned suffered from schizophrenia.
- To make Carol and Helen's flat look authentic, art director Seamus Flannery and cinematographer Gilbert Taylor photographed the interiors of real flats shared by young women in a seedy part of South Kensington.
- Ian Hendry, who played Michael, often came back to the set after lunch drunk, which made him hard for Polanski to direct.
