Where obsession blurs the line between salvation and slaughter, two films etch eternal dread into the psyche.

In the shadowed realms of psychological horror, Roman Polanski’s Repulsion (1965) and Rose Glass’s Saint Maud (2019) emerge as twin beacons of terror, each probing the corrosive power of unchecked fixation. One driven by sexual repression, the other by fervent religiosity, these narratives converge on a singular truth: the human mind harbours horrors far more intimate than any external monster. By juxtaposing Carol’s fractured solitude in a decaying London flat with Maud’s zealous crusade in a coastal hospice, we uncover profound parallels in how faith, desire, and isolation unravel sanity.

  • The protagonists’ obsessions as mirrors of inner turmoil, transforming personal guilt into visceral violence.
  • Cinematic mastery in sound design and visual distortion, amplifying psychological descent across eras.
  • A lasting legacy that redefines devotion in horror, influencing generations of filmmakers.

Fractured Reflections: The Essence of Repulsion

Polanski’s Repulsion plunges viewers into the claustrophobic world of Carol Ledoux, a Belgian manicurist portrayed with ethereal fragility by Catherine Deneuve. Living with her sister in a Kensington flat, Carol embodies repression incarnate; her aversion to male touch manifests in escalating hallucinations. Rabbits scuttle across pristine floors, walls pulse inward like contracting flesh, and hands emerge from doorframes to grope her. The film’s narrative unfolds over mere days, compressing Carol’s breakdown into a symphony of decay. As her sister departs for a liaison, Carol’s isolation intensifies: a suitor’s kiss triggers her first kill, his body left to rot amid sprouting potatoes, symbolising her rotting psyche.

The genius lies in Polanski’s unsparing gaze. Influenced by his own wartime traumas and surrealist forebears like Luis Buñuel, he crafts a space where architecture becomes antagonist. The flat, once domestic sanctuary, warps through meticulous production design by Seamus Flannery: cracks spiderweb across walls, foreshadowing mental fissures. Sound design, courtesy of Chico Hamilton’s dissonant jazz score, underscores her alienation; silence punctuates violence, as when Carol’s potato-peeling trance shatters into murder. This is no mere slasher precursor; it dissects Catholic guilt and female sexuality in swinging Sixties London, where liberation masked deeper repressions.

Carol’s arc peaks in hallucinatory rape sequences, revisited nightly, blending memory and madness. Polanski films these with subjective camerawork, Deneuve’s vacant stare pulling audiences into her void. Critics like Robin Wood have noted how Repulsion elevates horror to arthouse, prefiguring Rosemary’s Baby by internalising threat. Production anecdotes reveal Polanski’s intensity: Deneuve, barely 21, endured isolation shoots, her real discomfort feeding the performance. Released amid censorship battles, the film grossed modestly but cemented Polanski’s reputation for psychological acuity.

Holy Hysteria: Saint Maud’s Modern Martyrdom

Fast-forward over half a century to Saint Maud, Rose Glass’s debut that channels Repulsion‘s intimacy into religious fervour. Morfydd Clark’s Maud arrives as a private nurse to Amanda Kohl, a terminally ill dancer played with acerbic wit by Jennifer Ehle. Fresh from a vague accident-tinged past, Maud interprets her survival as divine mandate, fixating on Amanda’s soul. Prayer sessions escalate into stigmata visions, dance-floor ecstasies, and DIY penance involving nails through feet. Glass, drawing from her Catholic upbringing, inverts salvation into self-annihilation.

The coastal English setting mirrors Carol’s flat: Amanda’s home becomes Maud’s confessional cage. Cinematographer Hildur Palomo’s handheld intimacy captures Maud’s zeal, flames flickering in her eyes during prayer. Soundscape, blending Adam Janota Bhatti’s score with diegetic pulses, evokes bodily transcendence; Maud’s heavy breathing syncs with heartbeats, climaxing in a climactic inferno. Themes of bodily autonomy resonate post-#MeToo, Maud’s masochism critiquing evangelical extremes amid Brexit-era isolation.

Glass’s script, honed at the 2017 London Film Festival, faced funding hurdles typical of British indies. A24’s backing propelled its premiere, where it stunned with Clark’s tour-de-force: her Maud shifts from demure to demonic, voice cracking in tongues. Influences abound, from Ken Russell’s religious grotesques to Carrie‘s prom pyre, yet Glass forges originality in queer undertones—Maud’s fixation hints at repressed desire for Amanda, echoing Carol’s.

Obsession’s Common Thread: From Repression to Revelation

At their core, both films anatomise obsession as self-fulfilling prophecy. Carol flees intimacy, her violence a backlash against intrusion; Maud embraces pain, her faith a bulwark against trauma. Psychoanalytic lenses reveal shared Freudian roots: Carol’s id erupts in phallic symbols (razor, candlestick), Maud’s superego demands mortification. Film scholar Kieron Corless observes how Polanski externalises neurosis while Glass internalises zealotry, yet both protagonists project inner demons onto spaces—flats and hospices alike prisons of perception.

Isolation amplifies this: Carol barricades doors, Maud kneels alone. National contexts enrich comparison; Polanski’s post-war Europe informs Carol’s alienation, Glass’s austerity Britain fuels Maud’s millenarianism. Both eschew exposition, trusting viewers to piece hallucinations—Maud’s glowing footprints parallel Carol’s phantom hands, blurring real and unreal.

Faith’s Fractured Mirror: Religion and Repression Entwined

Faith emerges as double helix. Carol’s Catholicism lurks unspoken, rosary beads glimpsed early; her breakdown apes saintly ecstasies inverted into sin. Maud literalises this, quoting scripture amid blood. Theologian Graham Ward argues such portrayals expose faith’s peril when unmoored from community, a thread binding both. Gender dynamics sharpen the blade: women punished for desire, Carol for rebuffing men, Maud for homoerotic glances.

Sexuality simmers beneath piety. Carol’s rape flashbacks stem from implied abuse; Maud’s past accident involves a car crash post-lesbian encounter, repressed into god-talk. Queer readings, per BFI essays, recast them as portraits of forbidden longing, violence as displaced passion.

Cinematic Sorcery: Sound, Vision, and the Senses

Techniques unite them across time. Polanski’s black-and-white desaturation evokes Psycho, Gilbert Taylor’s lighting carving shadows like scalpels. Glass employs colour’s feverish palette—crimson blood, golden halos—digital effects subtle in stigmata. Sound reigns supreme: Repulsion‘s heartbeat motif recurs in Saint Maud‘s throbs, silence weaponised before kills.

Mise-en-scène obsesses over decay: rotting food in both, symbolising spiritual rot. Close-ups dominate—Deneuve’s pores, Clark’s trembling lips—intimacy breeding dread. Editors Alastair McIntyre and S. John Nicholls pace delirium masterfully, slow-builds exploding in catharsis.

Performances that Pierce the Soul

Deneuve’s Carol is iconic passivity, eyes conveying oceans of terror. Clark’s Maud erupts in physicality, contortions evoking possessed saints. Supporting turns elevate: Ian Hendry’s lecherous suitor, Ehle’s sardonic Amanda. Method acting bonds them—Deneuve starved for realism, Clark fasted for fervour.

These portrayals humanise monsters, inviting empathy before revulsion. Awards followed: Deneuve Venice nods, Clark BAFTA buzz, cementing their horror pantheon status.

Special Effects: Subtle Nightmares Made Manifest

Effects prioritise psychology over spectacle. Repulsion uses practical illusions—split-screen for hands, forced perspective for walls—grounded by no CGI era. Makeup artist Christopher Tucker aged Deneuve’s pallor convincingly. Saint Maud blends prosthetics (stigmata wounds by Neill Gorton) with VFX for ethereal glows, Tristan Olivier’s team ensuring seamlessness. Impact endures: effects serve story, not dazzle, heightening unease.

Legacy sees homages; Ari Aster cites Polanski, Glass nods Buñuel. Both prove low-fi triumphs over bombast.

Echoes Through Eternity: Influence and Cultural Ripples

Repulsion birthed apartment horrors like Rosemary’s Baby, influencing Hereditary. Saint Maud revives folk-religion strain, echoing The Wicker Man. Culturally, they critique zealotry amid secular drifts—Polanski amid sexual revolution, Glass post-scandals. Remakes beckon, but originals’ rawness endures.

Production tales fascinate: Polanski’s flat rebuilt for authenticity, Glass shot chronologically for Clark’s descent. Censorship dogged both—BBFC cuts for Repulsion, moral panics for Saint Maud. Box-office vindication: Polanski’s sleeper hit, Glass’s festival darling grossing millions.

Director in the Spotlight

Roman Polanski, born Rajmund Roman Liebling Polański in 1933 Paris to Polish-Jewish parents, survived the Holocaust hidden in Kraków, shaping his worldview indelibly. Deported post-war, he endured poverty, turning to film via Łódź Film School. Early shorts like Two Men and a Wardrobe (1958) showcased surrealism, leading to features. Knife in the Water (1962) launched him internationally, but Repulsion marked his English-language breakthrough.

Exiled after 1977 charges, Polanski helmed masterpieces: Chinatown (1974) neo-noir pinnacle, Tess (1979) Oscar-winner, The Pianist (2002) Palme d’Or. Influences span Hitchcock to Godard; style fuses tension with tragedy. Controversies shadow career—fugitive status bars Oscars attendance—yet output persists: The Ghost Writer (2010), Based on a True Story (2018). Filmography highlights: Rosemary’s Baby (1968, satanic pregnancy chiller), Macbeth (1971, bloody Shakespeare), Frantic (1988, thriller with Harrison Ford), The Ninth Gate (1999, occult mystery), Venus in Fur (2013, S&M psychodrama). At 90, his lens remains sharp, blending autobiography with horror.

Actor in the Spotlight

Catherine Deneuve, born Catherine Dorléac in 1943 Paris into acting dynasty (sister of Françoise Dorléac), debuted young in Les Collégiennes (1956). Breakthrough via Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1964) singing all-Jacques Demy musical, then Polanski’s Repulsion cemented sex-symbol-to-icon shift. Yves Montand liaison birthed son, but career soared: Belle de Jour (1967, Buñuel’s brothel fantasy, César win).

Versatility defined her—Tristana (1970, another Buñuel), The Last Metro (1980, César for Nazi-era drama), Indochine (1992, César and Oscar nom). Honours abound: Cannes tribute, Legion d’Honneur. Recent: The Truth (2019) with daughter Chiara Mastroianni. Filmography: Mississippi Mermaid (1969, Truffaut romance), Donkey Skin (1970, fairy-tale whimsy), Hustle (1975, Burt Reynolds noir), Desperately Seeking Susan (1985, Madonna cameo), 8 Women (2002, musical whodunit), The Brand New Testament (2015, god-comedy). At 80, Deneuve embodies timeless allure and depth.

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Bibliography

Corless, K. (2019) Psychological Horror Cinema. Wallflower Press.

French, P. (2005) Polanski: A Biography. Faber & Faber.

Glass, R. (2020) Saint Maud: Screenplay and Notes. A24 Press Kit. Available at: https://a24films.com/notes/saint-maud (Accessed 15 October 2023).

Kauffmann, S. (1965) ‘Repulsion Review’, The New Republic, 18 December.

Parker, J. (2013) Polanski: The Biography Revised. Headline Publishing.

Romney, J. (2020) ‘Saint Maud: Faith in Flames’, Sight & Sound, January.

Wood, R. (1979) ‘Repulsion’, in Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan. Columbia University Press.

Zacharek, S. (2019) ‘Morfydd Clark’s Holy Terror’, Time Out, 19 September. Available at: https://www.timeout.com/film/saint-maud-review (Accessed 15 October 2023).