Virginia Ducci (played Jennifer O’Neill), a woman who has been clairvoyant since early childhood, is haunted by visions of a murder. Her analyst, Luca (Marc Porel) is skeptical of her psychic impressions yet has trouble explaining away the odd coincidences that keep taking place. While visiting her husband’s summer home, her visions lead her to a skeleton of a woman buried within the wall of the room from her visions.

Her husband Francesco (Gianni Garko) is immediately arrested after it turns out that the woman’s body in the wall was his former lover. Virginia is desperate to prove his innocence and is convinced that the police have the facts of the case completely wrong due to the discrepancies between their evidence and her visions. Still haunted by these recurring and incredibly tangible moments of déjà vu, Virginia begins to believe that she may be in terrible danger from the real murderer.

Shortly before his journey into gory epics such as Zombie and The Beyond, director Lucio Fulci gave the world Seven Notes in Black. This tight little thriller has quite a low body count for the giallo genre but it delivers a ton of style and mystery for the patient viewer’s sake. Great moody and technically perfect lighting as well as impeccable camerawork (by cinematographer Sergio Salvati) give the film a dreamy and an intentionally disorienting edge. The eerie soundtrack by Franco Bixio, Fabio Frizzi, and Vince Tempera is brilliant. It’s one of those kitschy yet haunting scores that could only have come out of the 70s. The three composers' beautiful melody from Seven Notes made a recent appearance in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill.

This cast is completely loaded with some familiar faces from the horror and giallo genres. Jennifer O’Neill (Scanners) is excellent in her role as the gifted yet unlucky Virginia. We’ve got smooth operator, Marc Porel, of Don’t Torture a Duckling, the king of guilt, Gabriele Ferzetti, of The Maniac Responsible, and the severe yet oddly attractive spoiled princess, Evelyn Stewart (AKA Ida Galli), of Case of the Scorpion’s Tail. Then there’s Fabrizio Jovine as Commissioner D'Elia who played the priest that started it all in City of the Living Dead. Hell, even Bruno Corazzari of Seven Blood-Stained Orchids is in this one. Jeez, I could go on and on with this freakin’ ensemble.

While the gore barely even registers on the splatter meter and the sleaze factor is completely absent from the film’s equation, Fulci fans will lap up the goodness of Seven Notes in Black. With little to no trashy distractions (other than an insane zoom lens), this film represents one of the director’s sharpest visions. Also, due to a methodical approach to the pace and editing, Seven Notes in Black will require some patience from the viewer. However, the rewards are great as this is an extremely tight film with a knack for slow-building tension.

DVD Stuff

Alfa Digital’s presentation of Seven Notes in Black is awesome in the audio/video department. The colors are deep and vibrant with great attention paid to the moments of soft focus of the print. I thought I heard some distortion in the cheesy love song ("With You") but it sounds like ABBA on downers anyway, so who knows, I might be hearing things. Extras are pretty non-existent on the disc save for scene selection and a redundant photo gallery (although "With You" is playing throughout the presentation (score!)).