Part of Shocktober
On a cold, bright autumn day in Suffolk, England, a little girl in a red mackintosh drowns in a pond — the daughter of John (Donald Sutherland) and Laura Baxter (Julie Christie). Trying to recover from the tragedy, the couple arrive in Venice, where John has been commissioned to restore a church. In the eerie atmosphere of the lagoon city in winter, they encounter two strange sisters. Laura is suddenly released from her grief when one of them, a blind psychic, tells her that she is in contact with her dead daughter. Angered and skeptical, John carries on with his work, but witnesses an unsettling vision of his own — a little girl in a red mackintosh disappearing into the Venetian alleys.
As Venice and his fate closes in on John, illusion, reality and sudden terror spiral the story to its grotesque climax, in director Nicolas Roeg’s brilliant adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s short story.
“Remains one of the great horror masterpieces, working not with fright, which is easy, but with dread, grief and apprehension. Few films so successfully put us inside the mind of a man who is trying to reason his way free from mounting terror.” —Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
“Time may heal all wounds, but it has done nothing to dispel the intensity of Nicolas Roeg’s DON’T LOOK NOW…. The movie remains a devastating portrait of grief, a master class in disjunctive editing and a haunting disquisition on the use of the color red.” —Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times
“Few films can as efficiently induce an attack of the screaming heebie-jeebies as Nicolas Roeg's classic supernatural thriller…. It's one of the most haunting, enigmatic and, in the final moments, bloodily shocking movies ever made.” —Adam Smith, Empire Magazine
