Repulsion (1965)

Roman Polanski has done far more film-wise to make apartments the living embodiment of psychological hell on Earth than anyone alive, and saying his low-budget English-language debut “Repulsion” stands above “Tenant” or “Rosemary’s Baby” is one massive compliment. Catherine Denevue plays Carol, a manicurist living with her aloof sister in London, zombie shuffling to and from work, staring at sidewalk cracks, and from her bedroom to the loo, staring at the razor of sister’s (married) sugar daddy. She glazes out, does not talk, and fears the leers or touch of any man. In quick succession, a suitor comes on strong and her sister leaves for vacation, acts that push Carol off her ledge into shocking hallucinations and depraved acts. Carol has a past that purges out at the finale as we learn her hellish torture is not over by half. Polanski works with brimstone, fear, and one hell of an actress, laying the way for the nightmares of “Baby,” his horror masterpiece of stifled women. Sick irony or inevitable that Polanski had his own misogynistic demons to spew years later? A near-unbearable must-watch classic that left me gasping, and spawned the recent dark daughter of “Black Swan.” A+