Italian horror maestro Lucio Fulci’s giallo thriller, The Psychic (1977; aka Seven Notes In Black, Sette Note In Nero, Murder To The Tune Of Seven Black Notes), received attention awhile back due to its great soundtrack by Franco Bixo, Fabio Frizzi, and Vince Tempera (listed as Bixo-Frizzi-Tempera); it was another score cannibalised by Quentin Tarantino with its key thriller theme used in moments of high suspense in Kill Bill Vol. 1 (it’s theone RZA raps over on the released soundtrack album). As a thriller, it once again brings in an Edgar Allen Poe vibe alongside its use of supernatural elements as Virginia (Jennifer O’Neill) is The Psychic, a power that has always been latent ever since she was a child where she psychically witnessed her mother’s cliffside suicide; you can see the Fulci touch from this opening sequence – other directors would just film a dummy flying off a cliff, Fulci includes inserts of the mother bashing her head on the rocks as she continues to fall. As an adult, Virginia is married to a wealthy Italian jetsetter Francesco (Gianna Garko – Sartana himself) and plans to redecorate a countryside mansion that he owns. However, as Virginia drives there, a montage of strange images flood her mind – a broken mirror, a girl on a magazine cover, a bloody dead body. All of this leads to the discovery of a body buried behind the walls of a room, walled in with bricks, a skeleton corpse. As detectives trace the remains to a missing woman from several years ago and the investigation closes around Francesco as the likely suspect, Virginia tries to investigate with the help of her hunky therapist Luca (Marc Porel). In contrast to Fulci’s later gorefests, this is more restrained even as the blood runs freely at certain points. It’s more of a straight ahead solid giallo thriller that provides a lot of style, particularly around how O’Neill is filmed being frightened and framed with the architecture and lighting. The main high points are the use of thebuilding thriller theme – during a chase sequence and in the climactic twist – and even if not a lot of the plotting makes sense, it does wrap up with a strong finish. I’ve also become a fan of the Olivia Newton John styled song, ‘With You’, during the title sequence. Available to stream on Kanopy. Recommended.
VHS Tracking 