Review of Don't Look Now (1936) by Andrew D — 10 Jun 2015

Polarizingly indifferent to what one would expect from a horror film - I don't really think its a thriller - Don't Look Now is Nicolas Roeg's take on The Birds' Daphne du Maurier's twisted story of grieving the death of a child in a foreign country.

Plagued by (psychic?) visits from beyond the grave, Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland find themselves in a miserable warp of a game throughout the film. It's good, but it isn't amazing. The style in which its filmed isn't necessarily surrealistic but its a Rosemary's Baby-esque dream-like style that twists and turns with alot of quick cuts and interceptions of nonsense or irrelevance that make it all the much more scary, because things that don't make sense are scary always and Roeg understand this.

The sex scene is really cool as well and remarks on how controversial the seventies must of been for film, released in the same year as Friedkin's The Exorcist and two years before The Rocky Horror Picture Show, in the same decade as 120 Days of Sodom, I Spit On Your Grave and A Clockwork Orange, reminding us we will always push boundaries like big red buttons, of course most of it is pretty tame to us now.

Don't Look Now is also relentlessly humble and unpolished throughout with muffled and dusty street corners, the romantic city of Venice is more city of devils than angels and is painted as no Happily Ever After destination.

The twist ending will stay with you for a very long time and whilst some parts of the film seem slightly plotless resulting in the film seeming a tad overlong, the finalé reeks of time well spent.