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Seven Notes In Black
AKA The Psychic
Directed By Lucio Fulci
Released: 1977
Starring: Jennifer O'Neill, Gabriele Ferzetti, Marc Porel, and Gianni
Garko
Running Time: 95 minutes
DVD Released By Alfa Digital
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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.
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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!)).
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Links:
Get this DVD from
Xploited Cinema.
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Quotes:
Virginia: “Maybe you shouldn’t have married a clairvoyant.”
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