Don't Look Now

Structured like an elaborate puzzle filled with temptation and deception, bizarre symbolism, and endless red herrings, Nicolas Roeg's breakthrough film is a psychological ghost story that's as flamboyant as it is cryptic. After the death of their young daughter (who drowned at their countryside estate in Hertfordshire), an English couple (Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland) travels to a misty, wintry Venice—where sunlight seems to spray more ash than light—in an attempt to escape their grief. Slowly, their rational world begins to unravel in the Italian city. The screenplay is based on a paranormal novella by British author Daphne du Maurier. Yet with its use of the colour red, its stylised portrayal of a decaying city, jarring montage sequences, and the macabre debut score by Pino Donaggio, Don't Look Now feels less like a product of the Anglo-Saxon gothic horror tradition and more aligned with the Italian giallos of Dario Argento and the baroque terror of Mario Bava.