Repulsion is Psycho turned inside out. In Hitchcock's film we see a double murder through the eyes of the victims—in Polanski's our viewpoint is the killer's. Polanski (coauthor, with Gerard Brach, of the original story) offers no psychiatric explanation for his heroine's behavior. He simply presents it, and if we choose to identify with her fears and her irrational ferocity that is our business, not his….
Within its limits, Repulsion is a flawless exercise: it establishes Polanski as a master of the casual macabre. We know he can scare us to death—all that remains is for him to prove that he can also warm us to life.
Kenneth Tynan, "A Grisly Tour de Force of Sex and Suspense," in Life (courtesy of Life Magazine; © 1965 Time Inc.; reprinted with permission of the author), Vol. 59, No. 15, October 8, 1965, p. 23.
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