10 Horror Movie Twists That Rewrote The Rules
4. It Was Never Their Deceased Daughter - Don’t Look Now (1973)
The 1970s were ripe with horrors/thrillers that dwelled in gritty and punishing realism, and 1973’s Don’t Look Now is a superb example of that.
After the tragic drowning of their adolescent daughter, Christine, bereaved couple John and Laura Baxter head to Venice so that John can restore an ancient church while Laura processes the loss in her own ways. Unfortunately, strange things start happening around them as soon as they arrive.
Specifically, Laura interacts with an ominous pair of elderly sisters – one of whom, Heather, is a psychic who senses Christine and danger in John’s future – while John repeatedly sees a figure in a red coat whom he presumes is his deceased child. All the while, reports of a serial killer on the loose loom large in the background.
So, what’s going on? Is Christine somehow alive and running around Venice? Is John’s overwhelming grief causing him to hallucinate what he’s seeing or mistake a different kid for his daughter?
The truth is none of the above, as John’s actually been tailing a real person... who promptly slashes his throat with a meat cleaver, thereby exposing herself as the elusive serial killer and confirming that John and Heather’s premonitions were foreshadowing his murder.
It’s a traumatically twisted and cruel resolution that set a new standard for seemingly random WTF finales.