Don't Look Now (1973) is one of the creepiest films ever made, and audiences are still talking about the final Dwarf Killer reveal after all these years.
Don't Look Now is a horror/thriller movie directed by Nicolas Roeg and based on a short story by Daphne du Maurier. It stars Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie as a married couple grieving over the accidental drowning of their daughter. Together, they travel to Venice, where they have a strange encounter with two clairvoyant sisters who inform them that their deceased daughter is trying to contact them and warn them of impending danger.
Donald Sutherland's character soon begins to spiral as he experiences visions of not only the past but also the future, and can't reconcile them with his grief. Instead of dealing with the loss of his daughter, he chases phantom ideas that inevitably leave him to make a horrifying mistake. Several times in the movie, he catches glimpses of a small figure in a red raincoat similar to the one his daughter was wearing when she drowned. Unable to accurately interpret the psychic visions he is having, he ends up running after this small person in red only to come face to face with the Dwarf Killer.
Don't Look Now's Dwarf Killer Explained
When the diminutive figure in the red raincoat finally turns to face Donald Sutherland and the Dwarf Killer is revealed, it is a devastating moment in the film. For the entire course of the movie, Sutherland has been suppressing his rational grief, somehow refusing to believe what happened to his daughter is real, until he confronts the Dwarf Killer and, inevitably, his own death. The hideous female dwarf, who is the serial killer reportedly stalking the streets of Venice, pulls out a meat cleaver and slices Sutherland's throat while he is frozen in terror.
Interestingly, the Dwarf Killer has very little to do with the overall plot of Don't Look Now. While the couple goes through the grieving process while moving to Venice, a serial killer is said to be in the streets. Her victims are all young women who have been drowned and her motives are unknown. Even after she kills Sutherland at the end of the film, she is said to be at large. Other than that, very little is known about her. She has only a moment of screen time and no dialogue. However, since she normally only kills women by drowning, her murder of Sutherland with a blade is in stark contrast to what she normally does, which serves primarily to make the twist ending at the end of Don't Look Now all the more heart-wrenching.