Don't Look Now (1973)

Film: Don't Look Now (1973)

Stars: Julie Christie, Donald Sutherland

Director: Nicolas Roeg

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

All October long, The Many Rantings of John is running a marathon dedicated to the Horror classics of the 1960's-90's that I'm seeing for the first time this month.  If you want to take a look at past titles from previous horror marathons (both this and other seasons) check out the links at the bottom of this article.

"Elevated Horror" is generally considered to be a new concept, or at least a concept that has gained fame in the past decade.  Films like The Babadook and Hereditary are considered to be classic examples of it, to the point where the movies were mocked in Scream V largely because they were seen as being "too fancy."  But "elevated horror" (I know some people hate that term, and it is pretty insulting to the movies that it clearly is trying to distinguish are "not as good") has been around for decades, as is evidenced by our movie today Don't Look Now.  Made in 1973, it was a horror-thriller that would score a series of BAFTA nominations across all major categories.  It was initially well-received, but in the decades since is considered to be a classic of the genre, and one of the best non-slasher horror films of the 1970's.  It also has maybe the most famous sex scene of the decade this side of Last Tango in Paris.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about John Baxter (Sutherland), an architect and his beautiful wife Laura (Christie) who are in Italy after the tragic drowning of their daughter Christine.  Both of them are grief-stricken, but they're trying to handle it in different ways, with John throwing himself deep into his work, while Laura is attempting to find ways of communicating with her daughter.  She does this through a blind medium that she meets, and slowly becomes enamored with this world, to the point where it puts a strain on her marriage.  Meanwhile, her husband has been seeing visions, possibly of his dead daughter Christine (who wore a red cloak).  As the film progresses, his visions increase, where he's even seeing Laura, who is supposedly in England, throughout the city of Venice.  He starts to suspect that it's his daughter trying to contact him, but when he goes to the medium, she warns him, but it's too late.  The visions that John has been seeing are not of his late daughter or of his grieving wife, but of his own future.  When he confronts a hooded figure in a cloak, it isn't Christine but a killer dwarf, likely the serial killer that they've been mentioning in background scenes throughout the picture.

I'll be totally honest here-the first hour or so of this movie I was in the middle.  The film was kind of slow, and while it was fascinating, I could feel my attention waning.  The look at grief, and how it either becomes an obsession or it becomes something you can no longer ignore is interesting, and Christie & Sutherland were both very good, but I was wondering why this was considered a classic.  However, in the last twenty minutes you realize the investment you've had.  You start to understand that John has basically been trying anything to avoid confronting his own mortality, the fact that his daughter will never return, and that his marriage can never be the same.  That he does this while also getting hacked to bits, ignoring everything everyone around him has said in hopes of avoiding his grief is twisted...made even more so by the fact that with him gone, Laura will undoubtedly never really escape her grief, giving herself over to the existing-between-worlds path of the medium.

The sex scene is unusual not just because of the graphic nature of it and how long it works, but because to begin with, it doesn't have a lot of connection to the plot (Gen Z would have a field day with this if it was released today).  But it looks glorious (Sutherland & Christie look gorgeous...glad they caught that for posterity), and it also gives us a lot of insight into these characters.  They were once a scorching hot, sexy couple, ones who had hours-long sessions in the sack.  By the end of the film, that passion has been replaced by despair, and it shows that they can never get back.  All sex scenes in movies are necessary because sex is part of our lives & should be seen onscreen as a result, but this one is impressive because it informs us about the characters themselves.

Past Horror Month Reviews

1920's: The Golem, The Phantom of the Opera

1930's: The Black Cat, The Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula, Dracula's Daughter, Frankenstein, Freaks, The Invisible Man, Mad Love, The Mummy, The Old Dark House, The Raven, Son of Frankenstein, Werewolf of London

1940's: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Cat People, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, House of Dracula, The House of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man Returns, The Invisible Man's Revenge, The Invisible Woman, The Ghost of Frankenstein, Invisible Agent, The Mummy's Curse, The Mummy's Ghost, The Mummy's Hand, The Mummy's Tomb, Phantom of the Opera, She-Wolf of London, Son of Dracula, The Uninvited, The Wolf Man

1950's: Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy, Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, The Blob, Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Creature Walks Among Us, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, It Came from Outer Space, Revenge of the Creature

1960's: The Devil Rides Out, The Innocents, The Masque of the Red Death, Night of the Living Dead,Village of the Damned

1970's: The Amityville Horror, Carrie, Dawn of the Dead, Halloween, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, When a Stranger Calls, The Wicker Man

1980's: Child's Play, The Evil Dead, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Poltergeist

1990's-Present: The Blair Witch Project, Scream