100. DON'T LOOK NOW

Do Watch Now

By Darin Skaggs

SPOILERS!

     One of the most look down upon genres in film is the horror genre.  In most recent years the genre has become blood filled and unnecessary franchises, much like the 1980’s and early 90’s.  The first kind of horror films were from the 1930’s that included Frankenstein and Dracula.  Most of these films are fun and interesting, but for the most part not scary.  The first terrifying horror film, in my opinion, is Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. This film started the short lived horror masterpieces that lasted from 1960 starting with Psycho and ending with Ridley Scott’s Alien with some good ones here and there.  Right in the middle of this spectacular span of horror movies is Nicholas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now. 

     The film opens with a young girl in a red raincoat walking near a small body of water.  At the same time this scene cuts to the girl’s family in their home, the dad working on schematics for a church he is scheduled to redo.  There is some weird imagery throughout the scene and then something happens.  The dad spills some red paint on the picture of the church and has vision of bad things happening to his daughter outside.  He runs out and sees his daughter in the water, she has drowned.  His wife looks and seems in shock with the dad holding his dead child and screaming in emotional pain.  Then cut to months later.

     The opening to this film is the driving force of emotion for what goes on for the rest of the film.  Though I called this film a horror film, which I do think it is, it is also a psychosocial thriller.  The entire time after the death of his young daughter he is slowly ridden with guilt.  The cut right after the death scene is not only months after it is also on the other side of the country.  The church he is working on is in Venice.  While there his wife meets these two women that seem to have a lot of interest in her and the dad.  They are weird and they try to convince both of them that the dad has supernatural powers and might be able to see the future.  We and the father character struggle if this is true or part of him losing his mind.  This film has many metaphors for the grief stricken state of the father.  He does the best he can to take his mind off his daughter’s passing.  He becomes romantic with his wife, that doesn’t work.  He works hard re-building the church he’s been assigned, that makes him worse due to the fact every time he is there his life is threated.  He tries multiple things to distract himself yet it all comes back, in a very subtle way, that his daughter is gone.

     The horror part of the film is that there is a small figure the father keeps seeing running around Venice.  This figure is dressed in a red raincoat that is identical to the one of his daughter.  Only he sees this figure.  It is a metaphor for his guilt and grief and might also be really happening to him.

     When watching this film I found that the dad was really broken up about the loss of his daughter, it is tearing him apart and slowly leading him into a deep depression.  He is broken, but his wife either has not been affected at all or not too much.  In the opening scene he is so affected that his daughter is gone, but the mother is only slightly fazed when she realizes her daughter has drowned.   This leads to the complete paranoia that someone is trying to murder him.  At one point his wife leaves to go back to the United States, yet he sees her on a passing boat.  He calls the states and finds out that she is there and had not yet return.

     The ending of the film is one of my favorites.  In the climax the father is chasing the figure in the raincoat.  When he finally catches up to the raincoat it is in the church.  The figure turns around and is a creepy old lady.  The man is in shock.  Then the old woman takes out a knife and kills the dad.  While dying the man sees everything that happens, including the beginning when he spills the red on the church symbolizing his death.  The whole film it a metaphor about how losing someone can slowly kill you emotionally.  He slowly loses the passion for his wife and seems to fully forget his son.  The vision he has for the future, including his funeral, is a metaphor for his depression making him feel what he feels the future will be without his child.

     This film is a classic.  It is filled with metaphors for death, grief and depression.  The film deals with them head on in a dark way.  It is also a great mystery, psychological thriller and horror film that keeps you entertained and will stick with you for a long time.