Trying to stick to all spooky posts this month, here’s a look at one of my favorite scary films. For me, Halloween means watching chilling movies and this one is a must-see classic of visionary, supernatural horror. Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now explores the otherworldly experiences of a mother and a father grieving the loss of their child. That reads pretty vague, but this piece boasts exceptional mood and arresting visuals that, frankly, speak beyond language. This film is a poem. It’s more Poe than Shakespeare. Here are the words on the Criterion page…

Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie mesmerize as a married couple on an extended trip to Venice following a family tragedy. While in that elegantly decaying city, they have a series of inexplicable, terrifying, and increasingly dangerous experiences. A masterpiece from Nicolas Roeg, Don’t Look Now, adapted from a story by Daphne du Maurier, is a brilliantly disturbing tale of the supernatural, as renowned for its innovative editing and haunting cinematography as its naturalistic eroticism and unforgettable climax and denouement, one of the great endings in horror history.

They ain’t lying, y’all. Here’s a great Mark Cousins interview with Sutherland, looking back at Nicolas Roeg and Don’t Look Now…(The only version of this I found won’t play here. Click to watch below and when you’re denied, hover over the screen and click on the YouTube symbol in lower right side of the screen to proceed to my channel where you can watch this along with all the other videos I curate for this blog)…

Stay Awake!

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One of my favorite movie-going experiences of 2012 was spending four Saturday and Sunday afternoons watching Mark Cousins’ The Story of Film: A 15-hour history of cinema that A.O. Scott of The New York Times called  “a semester-long film studies survey course compressed into 15 brisk, sometimes contentious hours…stands as an invigorated compendium of conventional wisdom.”

Before taking on such an ambitious project, Cousins had established his reputation as a film critic as well as the host of the BBC show Scene by Scene. The program found Cousins in coversation with some of the world’s best film directors, discussing their most iconic images and sounds.

In keeping with my occult/terror theme for the month of October, this episode of Scene by Scene features Cousins in a bristly interview with Roman Polanski. Besides Polanski’s personal horrors, the gifted director has made important contributions to the horror/supernatural genre including: The Fearless Vampire Killers, The Tenant, The 9th Gate and the classic, Rosemary’s Baby.

Here is Roman Polanski, Scene by Scene:

What’s your favorite Polanski film? Leave a comment and share your thoughts. 

Stay Awake!

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more Occult posts.