Plot

A married couple grieving the recent death of their young daughter are in Venice when they encounter two elderly sisters, one of whom is psychic and brings a warning from beyond.

John and Laura Baxter are in Venice when they meet a pair of elderly sisters, one of whom claims to be psychic. She insists that she sees the spirit of the Baxters' daughter, who recently drowned. Laura is intrigued, but John resists the idea. He, however, seems to have his own psychic flashes, seeing their daughter walk the streets in her red cloak, as well as Laura and the sisters on a funeral gondola.—James Meek <[email protected]>

Unable to come to terms with the untimely demise of their little daughter, and the silent undercurrent of insufferable guilt, John Baxter and his wife, Laura, relocate to cold, winter Venice, in Italy. There, against the backdrop of an endless spate of horrifying murders in the city's meandering canals, John uses his work, the restoration of an old chapel, to channel his suppressed grief, while Laura resorts to taking pills. Then, a chance encounter with the cryptic siblings, the blind psychic, Heather, and Wendy, her eccentric sister, triggers eerie visions of the beloved deceased, while in the meantime, a sinister figure in a glossy red anorak terrorises the dark back alleys of the now-off-season town. Could the mysterious sisters be telling the truth? Is sceptic John's life, indeed, in grave danger?—Nick Riganas

Still grieving over the accidental drowning of their daughter, Christine, John and Laura Baxter head to Venice, where John is commissioned to restore a church. There Laura meets two sisters who claim to be in touch with the spirit of the Baxters' daughter. John scorns the idea until he himself catches a glimpse of what looks like Christine by a canal.

John Baxter (Donald Sutherland) and his wife, Laura (Julie Christie), are a married couple whom are both traumatized one day when their young daughter, Christine (Sharon Williams), falls into a pond and drowns near their English country home.

Several months later, John and Laura take a trip to Venice after John accepts a commission from a bishop (Massimo Serato) to restore an ancient church. Laura encounters two elderly sisters, Heather (Hilary Mason) and Wendy (Clelia Matania), at a restaurant where she and John are dining; Heather claims to be psychic and despite being blind informs Laura she is able to 'see' the Baxters' deceased daughter. Shaken, Laura returns to her table, where she faints.

Laura is taken to the hospital, where she later tells John what Heather told her. John is skeptical but pleasantly surprised by the positive change in Laura's demeanour. Later in the evening after returning from the hospital, John and Laura engage in passionate sex. Afterwards, they go out to dinner where they get lost and briefly become separated. John catches a glimpse of what looks like a small child (Adelina Poerio) wearing a red coat similar to the one Christine was wearing when she died.

The next day, Laura meets with Heather and Wendy at their apartment who hold a séance to try to contact Christine. When she returns to the hotel, Laura informs John that Christine has said he is in danger and must leave Venice. John loses his temper with Laura, but that night they receive a telephone call informing them that their son (Nicholas Salter) has been injured in an accident at his boarding school. Laura departs for England, while John stays on to complete the restoration.

Under the assumption that Laura is in England, John is shocked when later that day he spots her on a barge that is part of a funeral cortege, accompanied by the two sisters. Concerned about his wife's mental state and with reports of a serial killer at large in Venice, he reports Laura's disappearance to the police. The inspector (Renato Scarpa) investigating the killings is suspicious of John and has him followed.

After conducting a futile search for Laura and the sisters in which he again sees the childlike figure in the red coat, John contacts his son's boarding school to enquire about his condition, only to discover Laura is already at the school. After speaking to her to confirm she really is in England, a bewildered John returns to the police station to inform the police he has found his wife. In the meantime the police have brought Heather in for questioning, so an apologetic John offers to escort her back to the hotel.

Shortly after returning, John catches another glimpse of the mysterious figure in red as he is leaving Heather's hotel, and this time pursues it. Meanwhile, Heather has slipped into a trance and upon coming out of it beseeches her sister to go after John, sensing that something terrible is about to happen, but Wendy is unable to catch up with him. John follows the elusive figure to a deserted palazzo, and having cornered it, realizes (way too late) that the strange sightings he has been experiencing were premonitions of his own death. The "child" in the red raincoat that John has been seeing is NOT the ghost of Christine, but is actually a killer dwarf whom is responsible for all of the murders happening in Venice, and the dwarf kills him by stabbing him in the neck with a butcher knife. As the killer escapes, John sees his whole life flash before his eyes for several seconds as he dies. Laura, Heather, and the police arrive on the sceen too late to save John or to aprehend the killer dwarf whom has claimed John as her latest victim.

The final shots of the movie show Laura along with her son, and the two sisters on a funeral barge traveling to a local church for John's funeral... just as he visioned it on the day before his own murder.