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I like horror movies. Really, I do. It's one genre where the film has to be really, really abhorrently terrible for me to actually be bored, as most bad horror movies at least provide a few laughs. Despite, or perhaps due to, my affinity for the horror genre, I find it nigh impossible to find films that are unsettling. "Don't Look Now", a film responsible in many ways for my becoming a film buff, is such a film, not for its 'disturbing' or gory content, but for its subtle suggestions, insinuations, and especially for the thick, tense, gloomy atmosphere that director Nicolas Roeg so brilliantly creates and maintains.

By consistently maintaining "Don't Look Now" as a character-driven script with recurring themes and motifs the writers of this film, Allan Scott and Chris Bryant who adapted their screenplay from the short story by Daphne DuMaurier (Rebecca), ensure that the 'jump moments' are never hollow or empty. Really, there are many moments here where you see a fleeting glimpse of creepy imagery that so frequently come off as desperate and stupid, but in "Don't Look Now" the same moments are so tied to the mythology the film develops and the thematic content of the film that they are actually meaningful and essential.

Of course, no comment on or discussion of "Don't Look Now" is complete without commentary on the famous love scene. Yes, it's surprisingly explicit, but people who dwell on the weirdness and explicitness of the scene are largely, hugely missing the point. Roeg initially included the scene as a last minute addition to balance out the scenes of the couple arguing, but through masterful editing from Graeme Clifford (under the creative supervision of Roeg, obviously) the scene is turned into an essential part of the film, not only bizarrely erotic and tender, but also creepy, unsettling, and sad. Roeg intercuts the scene with images of the two dressing, preventing a moment of pure togetherness in the scene, changing the dimensions of and artistic motivation behind the sex scene drastically and definitely for the better.

Anthony B. Richmond, a once great cinema photographer (gone from working on "The Kids are Alright" to "Dumb and Dumber: When Harry Met Lloyd" these days) photographs this film beautifully with the strong creative involvement of director Nicolas Roeg. The score by Pino Donaggio is creepy, evocative, interesting, and sometimes even unpredictable. The unusual and innovative editing of the film is a crucial part of its resounding success, creating creepy moments out of nothing. Some of the acting is (deliberately) exaggerated for effect and mostly excellent.

With its creepy atmosphere, innovative editing, strong characters, good writing, and brilliant, unsettling final montage, "Don't Look Now" is director Nicolas Roeg's finest accomplishment and is deservedly regarded as one of the finest British films of all time, but I'd go a bit further and say it is likely a strong contender for the title of best British film, period.

10/10

Don't Look Now is based on a Daphne Du Maurier story. She also wrote Rebecca. The movie version was directed by Alfred Hitchcock and won the Best Picture Oscar.

Don't Look Now is often held as an example of how a movie adaptation can be refreshingly different from the source material.

Director Nicolas Roeg was not a traditional director preferring to push the envelope. The movie is known making Venice look Gothic and menacing. As well as the tender lovemaking scene between Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland. It was regarded as rather graphic for the time.

Laura Baxter (Christie) and John Baxter (Donald Sutherland) are devastated when their daughter Christine accidentally drowns in a pond outside their home. She was wearing a shiny plastic red raincoat at the time.

John had some kind of second sight that she was in danger but was too late to save her.

Some time later, with their other son in Boarding school. Laura and John are in Venice. He is involved in a project to restore a church.

Laura has a chance encounter with two sisters, Heather and Wendy. Heather is blind but has psychic abilities. One of them is that Christine is communicating with her and that John might be in danger is they stay in Venice.

John dismisses the sisters but this is a Venice where a serial killer is on the loose. John is also having visions of someone in a red cape.

What begins as a film about family loss and grieving. It slowly but suddenly morphs into a psychic supernatural thriller that leans into horror.

You sense that John might be going mad as he has visions of Laura when he knows she has left Venice for England. He also dismisses his own supernatural abilities, his own sense that bad luck seems to follow him.

There is a subplot that Roeg introduces where John along with others could be the suspected killer. The ending is creepy and both horrific.

Apparently Du Maurier liked the adaptation of this story. Roeg introduces a lot of symbolism in the film. Hence why when the figure in the red cape turns around it is startling.

As a footnote when Joel Schumacher made Flatliners. The Kiefer Sutherland character had visions of a figure in red.

Now here's a film that may just get you thinking, the extents that some go to with abstractive linking, as a daughter is drowned, this might just make you frown, as you witness two souls, whose reality's sinking. Wandering around Venice there's a large hint of menace, two sisters suggest afterlife has a premise, a wife who believes, husband who still grieves, though to him, hocus pocus, is far too remiss. Understanding their feelings is the key to the door, through eyes that have witnessed events that have scored, a scar through their souls, left bottomless holes, a knife that has slashed at least one, to the floor.

"Don't Look Now" was released at about the time of "The Excorcist". There is otherwise no basis for comparison between these movies. While the Excorcist hits us in the face with the equivalent of a special effects rubber chicken, "Don't Look Now" manages to get under your skin from the very first scene, and gradually, elegantly insinuates itself into a place where your childhood and adult fears dwell and steep. Its setting in Venice is both beautiful and menacing. Something terrible is always just around the corner from our conscious mind. It is also troubling, and, as only a good movie can, leaves more questions unanswered than resolved. Without a doubt, it contains one of the most beautiful loves scenes ever filmed, showing scenes of Christie and Sutherland in genuinely erotic (by '70's standards) lovemaking, mixed with scenes of the couple as they dress and prepare for their day, the following morning. Director Nicolas Roeg is a forgotten Master.

Don't Look Now(1973) has been badly negleted by many film viewers does to its enematic nature. The first five to fifteen minutes are splendidly edited. Don't Look Now(1973) is based on a novel by Daphne Du Maurier. Borrows somes themes from the Alfred Hitchcock film of another ghost story by the author called Rebecca(1940). The film score by Pino Donaggio beats anything he has done for Brian De Palma except for Carrie(1976). Don't Look Now(1973) may have been influenced by a similar themed pic called Who Saw Her Die?(1971).

Nicolas Roeg does an excellent job in filming scenes of creepy and eerie impact. Donald Sutherland gives a extraordinary performance as the clairvoyant but disbeliever, John Baxter. The film's most controversial sequence is the shocking sex scene with Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. What's shocking about this one scene is the realistic feel of the act. There are some who believe to this day that the sex scene was not acted but real. The Sutherland-Christie sex scene is done with the same editing technique as The Man Who Fell to Earth(1976).

Don't Look Now(1973) was The Sixth Sense(1999) of its era. One film that sports the same idea about fate is David Croenberg's The Dead Zone(1983). Julie Christie is just brilliant as Laura Baxter. Shares the same gloomy landscape as the director's later film, The Man Who Fell to Earth(1976). The climax of Don't Look Now(1973) was a gloomy and shocking sequence to watch. Don't Look Now(1973) is in the tradition of films such as Last Year at Marienbad(1960).