8 Great Horror Movies Unfairly Snubbed At The Oscars
5. Don't Look Now (1973)
Directed by Nicolas Roeg (The Man Who Fell to Earth) and based on the short story by Daphne du Maurier, Don’t Look Now swims deep in anguish and regret with its story of a married couple (played by Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie) whose young daughter dies under their noses in a tragic drowning accident. When the devastated couple travel to Venice to escape their grief they meet two sisters, one of them a clairvoyant who claims their dead child his trying to contact them and warn them of danger.
The film plays out in the Venetian streets, exploring themes of communication, love, death, and identity, and juxtaposing beautiful architecture with harrowing flashbacks and frightening flashforwards, all building to a devastating climax that stands among the most iconic in horror movie history.
Don’t Look Now was controversial at the time of its release for its explicit and lengthy sex scene as performed by Sutherland and Christie, and debate still rages today as to whether or not the sex was real. The movie was generally well received by critics in 1973 and its reputation has continued to grow through the decades.
It won a number of international awards, but was snubbed by the Academy. Explicit (possibly real) sex and graphic supernatural violence in a movie that defies genres was never going to play well on Oscar night. Shame.
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