Yeah, Polanski did okay as the lead (Trelkovsky?) but a real actor would have been better. Plus, the production values were weaker - I’m guessing because of his recent legal troubles at the time the movie was made?
I’ll have to give “Repulsion” another try. The other two movies I’ve seen many times, but I’ve never bothered with “Repulsion” again because it just didn’t click with me. But Polanski movies tend to be like that: “Knife in the Water” was terrific; “Fearless Vampire Killers” didn’t do much of anything for me. “Chinatown” is fantastic, but doesn’t feel like a Polanski film somehow.
“The Ghost” from a few years ago was no masterpiece, but achieved something like the quality I enjoyed in “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Tenant.”
It was shocking back in the day when it came out. My favorite part of it, though, was walking out afterward and hearing someone telling her boyfriend that “that could never happen.” As I walked by, I asked “But you believe that god impregnated a virgin, right?” The look on her face was worth the price of admission.
I think the movie per se holds up well. What is a little harder to get over is that it was set in the late 60s, and here it is forty years later - where’s the Devil’s son and what has he been up to?
The other thing that spoiled it for me is that I read the sequel. Which was awful.
About half-way thru the sequel, I began to mentally label him “the Andy-Christ” and think of him as physically resembling Woody Allen, except with vertical pupils.
I haven’t seen it for many years but it was a classic and I don’t know why it wouldn’t be good today- much like the classic The Omen. I can’t think of Rosemary’s Baby without thinking of this Mad Magazine cover.