Don't Look Now : Would You Consider Don't Look Now Horror

There are lots of different kinds of horror. Some can be creepy, The Haunting (original), Some can be really scary, The Exorcist, Some can be Gothic Horror, the original Dracula. Some can be psychological horror like, Rosemary's Baby and some can be extremely disturbing like Martyrs or funny games.

So with all that being said does this movie fit any of the types of horror I've mention. I'm making a list on IMDB called My 100 Favorite horror films and I'm watching a lot of movies to do this list and don't want to waste my time on a movie if it can't be considered horror.

Netflix says it's a thriller, IMDB has it listed as horror and a thriller


We all go a little mad sometimes - Norman Bates

It was conceived as a thriller but it seems to have been adopted by the horror genre in recent years. It makes a lot of horror film lists these days; basically if you want it on your list then I think it's your prerogative to include it. It depends on what your approach is: if you aren't going to include borderline cases then leave it off, if you are it definitely should be on a top 100.

Its vast dissimilarity to most horror films of the past few decades aside, I think Don't Look Now is absolutely of a piece with the genre. To me it's horror at its plainest, most insidiously disturbing and traumatic. It creeps me out in ways that only a small handful of other films can compare with. Sure, many complain the pace is deliberate, but that doesn't discount it from the genre at all -- I think if anything the slow burn allows the deep sense of dread to accumulate more effectively.

While the film has thriller elements, I think it would be even more misleading to a modern audience to term it a "thriller" than a "horror film." If I had to be as specific and truthful to the film itself as possible, I would say that DLN is a "grief-fueled psychological horror tragedy." But that's a bit wordy for a genre label, isn't it?

"grief-fueled psychological horror tragedy."

This sounds spot on to me! Certainly what makes it so haunting is the element of gut-wrenching tragedy combined with the horror.

To follow the thread: I am a collector of Horrorfilm books and encyclopedias from the late 1960s till books that came out last year, and they ALL include DONT LOOK NOW! Why it doesnt fit into any other filmgenre is its theme of the supernatural/ESP/precognition which is not accepted in other genres! Sure, we can make up small side-genres by ourselves, but thats a private little thing that matters little. Sure, Dont Look Now´s theme CAN be expressed more head-on horrificially, but its not a straight thriller, is it?. I buy DONT LOOK NOW! as being a horrorfilm among other similiar films, there are a bunch from the 1970s. Also, as a 70´s film it is free and experimental to achieve emphathy for the characters (lovescene!) as well as finding a new expression for these themes for a new, more critical, mindexpanded generation in the 1970s.

Now, shall we/Do we, want to be more narrowminded and less mindexpanded than we were before? Your choice!

Although this movie has some elements commonly found in horror (the blind psychic, creepy serial killer), this didn't really feel like a horror movie to me. I would consider it more of a psychological drama.

Come, fly the teeth of the wind. Share my wings.

We have a special sub-genre in the UK for films that are not quite horrors, and not quite thrillers: chillers. A lot of fiction that would fall into the horror bracket in the US would be classified a chiller here, and I think Don't Look Now is a classic example of a chiller.

I think I would, but I would place it in a horror subcategory, under psychological thriller.

"This isn't a thimble, it's Turkish nipple armor."

Yes

It was a horror back in the day (just look at lot of other 70s horror) but it's lot closer to thriller now, since horror is associated with gore and violence nowadays.

Depends on what an individual defines as horror. In my opinion it would be a psychological horror/thriller, reministent of The Haunting regarding the atmosphere and playing on audiences' expectations.

"I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not".

Exactly! If this isnt considered a horror movie at all, this film, along with soo many others, from different periods, (but maybe most from the experimental 70s) ...would end up...where? psychological drama? No way! There is actually only one film genre which allow the supernatural to exist without explaining away the whole thing in a rational way!

AND THATS WHY I AM A HORRORFILM FAN! It happen to be the most free filmgenre there is! What ever horror story or horrorfilm, it can take place in whatever time and age, being told in any language, played out in any kind of situation or environment and the themes are countless! Its the anarchist of all film genres! Not even Fantasyfilms often go far from its mythological or fairytale roots and sword and sorcery imaginative medieval landscapes. And Sci Fi doesnt care much for serial killers or ghosts!

Hallelujah!

Yes, but I also would consider Taxi Driver, Network, Todd Haynes' Safe, David Cronenberg's Crash, Bergman's Persona, Michael Tolkin's The Rapture, The Lost Weekend, Detour, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Dancer in the Dark, Requiem for a Dream, High Plains Drifter, The Company of Men, Happiness, Cruising, and The Piano Teacher to be horror, as well as the books 'Madame Bovary' 'The 120 Days of Sodom' and 'The Scarlet Letter' and the plays Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Macbeth. The Passion of the Christ, also, but in a cheap way, like Hostel (which I found boring and ineffective, in addition to pandering) with outsized pretensions to spiritual art.

Good lord no, near the end i was thinking it might not even qualify as a thriller.........the ending better be good in order for me to even call it "horror" and then.....some grandma midget slices the guy with a bunch of comically fake blood spewing out

Assume nothing; Question everything

So, the point of your post is that you feel so superior to this film that you'd like to spoil the ending for someone who might not have seen it, saving them the trouble of making up their own mind about it. Classy. I'm sure that took almost half a brain. Too bad it wasn't the half you can actually use.

Yes.

I almost wouldn't call it a horror film at all. I found it to be almost undefinable (in terms of genre) upon watching it. But I suppose horror in a provocative, psychological sense is the best way to define it.

And FURTHERMORE, this is my signature! SERIOUSLY! Did you think I was still talking about my point?

I think this is 100% perfect for the horror genre!

I've always loved this movie. I'm a big Julie Christie fan.
A few years ago I heard some survey results on a San Antonio radio station.
They were the 10 Scariest (Horror) Movies and the 10 Most Erotic Love Scenes from Movies ever. Don't Look Now was the only film which made both lists. Not sure what the rating was but definitely Top 10 and I think the erotic love scene was No. 1 and it was high on the scariest also. I was surprised that the reviewer of the movie said it was not erotic. It is what I describe as "creepy" and definitely a psychological thriller.

It works mostly as a psychological thriller in how it builds more on the eerie mystery of what's real and what's being hallucinated than on anything shocking and frightening, but the very end of the film is what leaves a pretty traumatizing mark on first time viewers in a way that they would qualify it as a horror film. It's the same thing with thrillers or "chillers" like Les Diaboliques, Audition, or The Vanishing where the most frightening events happen near the end and it terrifies people to the point that they are scared to watch it again. Don't Look Now is in some ways a horror film that spends more time with establishing the eerie mood of everyday life as opposed to throwing shocking sights at you in a slasher or a monster flick.

"Don't Look Now is in some ways a horror film that spends more time with establishing the eerie mood of everyday life as opposed to throwing shocking sights at you in a slasher or a monster flick."

Which, I would say, makes its closest relative 'Rosemary's Baby,' even though that film never does deliver a visual shock. (Just steadily mounting paranoia with a punchline that was a shocking idea at the time - which is plenty. I still feel like I just swallowed my heart every time that old man stands outside the phone booth she's in, even though I know it's just William Castle doing one of the greatest, and funniest, cameos ever.) A lot of morons don't consider RB to be horror either, just because it manages to explore the genre in an adult way without being enslaved by its trappings. Small minds... . I can actually define "horror" so broadly that I'd include such non-horror films as 'Network,' 'Taxi Driver,' and Todd Haynes' exquisitely controlled 'Safe.'

I definitely consider the film of the horror genre. The film seems to be about Sutherland's dead daughter trying to warn him that his life is in danger, from beyond the grave. You also have the psychic sister who tells Christie of the warning.

No, not a pure horror film in that sense. I would say it's more psychological thriller/mystery sprinkled with some horror elements.

It's hard to categorize, like Picnic at Hanging Rock orThe Last Wave. I'd say it was a supernatural thriller or a supernatural murder mystery.

I think your comparison to The Last Wave is spot on. The Last Wave has one of the most memorable endings of any movie I've seen, as does Don't Look Now. They both involve a character who has precognition but doesn't know it. Picnic was just creepy.

Another great 1970's supernatural thriller is "The Other" from the early 1970's, which is about twins.

Yes, I love Mulligan's "The Other" as well. I just rewatched it recently, in fact. Shame it's not better known.

To me, it's a psychological horror movie and I'd definitely put it in a top 100 of the best horror movies.

I agree. And have you noticed how Sam Raimi rips it off again and again? I bet it's his favorite film or at least in his top 5.

I would say it is the creepy horror genre.
I had a dream where I fell with the bicycle into the sea and started drowning and I instantly remembered this movie,as though as I had a premonition of my own death.

Yes definately it's about as horror as you get.