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Psychic (The) AKA Sette note in nero (1977)
R1 - America - Severin Films Review written by and copyright: Jari Kovalainen (21st December 2007). |
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The Film
 Italian director/co-writer Lucio Fulci is forever associated with his gory zombie-films, but he was more than capable of doing the Giallo-genre also. “One on Top of the Other AKA Una sull'altra (1969)” (released under the name “Perversion Story” by “Severin Films”), “A Lizard in a Woman's Skin AKA Una Lucertola con la pelle di donna (1971)” and “Don't Torture A Duckling AKA Non Si Sevizia Un Paperino (1972)” are all excellent, well crafted films. There are fans that feel that they ultimately were his best work. Just a few years before his “zombie-period”, Fulci managed to direct one more solid Giallo, “The Psychic AKA Sette note in nero (1977)”. After that he visited some Giallo-related themes (e.g. “The New York Ripper AKA Lo Squartatore di New York (1982)”), but could never really achieve the results of his 1970’s output. Gore took over and eventually also the creative output from Fulci faded away. The opening of “The Psychic” is still typical Fulci; In England 1959, a woman dies in a graphic way, when she commits suicide by jumping from a cliff. Of course, on the “way down” her face is ripped open on the rocks (introducing perhaps the fakest dummy that I’ve seen in a long time) before landing on the waterline. At the same time her daughter in Firenze senses her mother’s horrible death. She actually sees it. The story then fast-forwards 18 years. The little girl has grown and Virginia (Jennifer O'Neill - e.g. “The Innocent AKA L' Innocente (1976)” and “Scanners (1981)”) is now happily married with a wealthy businessman Francesco Ducci (Gianni Garko - e.g. “Cold Eyes Of Fear AKA Gli Occhi Freddi Della Paura (1971)”). After fare welling Francesco on one of his business trips, Virginia receiver a series of very powerful visions in her car; large mirror is broken, bloody old woman lies dead, there’s a hole busted in the wall and images like yellow taxi, a cigarette and the face of a unknown man (Gabriele Ferzetti - e.g. “Once Upon A Time In The West AKA C'era Una Volta Il West (1968)”) flash through her eyes. When she finally “wakes up” on the side of the road, she instantly goes to talk to her trusted parapsychologist Luca Fattori (Marc Porel - e.g. “Don't Torture A Duckling AKA Non Si Sevizia Un Paperino (1972)”), an old friend. The official diagnose is that Virginia should probably just rest, since somehow the old wounds affected her emotional state. This doesn’t make Virginia happy, since the visions were similar to what she encountered when her mother died. Her husband never really believed, that she actually witness that terrible event. Getting herself back to normal life again, Virginia plans to surprise her husband by restoring his old mansion, which has been empty for quite a while. She’s a professional decorator, so it shouldn’t be a problem. To Virginia’s surprise, she’ll recognize the same mirror and the wall from her latest vision, which eventually leads to the shocking discovery; the skeleton buried in the wall. The murder investigation begins, with Francesco Ducci being the lead suspect. Virginia won’t believe this for a one second, so she starts her own detective work with the help Luca and Francesco’s sister Gloria (Ida Galli - as Evelyn Stewart, e.g. “Hercules In The Haunted World AKA Ercole Al Centro Della Terra (1961)”). Clues from her visions turn into reality and Virginia is closer to revealing the secrets that have been buried (literally) for years, and thus exposes her to grave danger. “The Psychic” (not sure why the more familiar title “Seven Notes in Black” wasn’t used with this DVD?) is not a pure “Giallo” nor pure “thriller”- it’s something in-between, and there’s also some mild “supernatural”-aspects thrown in. This might sound confusing at first, but everything holds up surprisingly well. The story is a bit rough around the edges, but Fulci manages to take the viewers on a mystery ride, where the ultimate outcome is revealed only at the very end of the film. The focus is tightly placed on the lead actress Jennifer O'Neill, when her character follows the leads from her visions one by one. With the well-thought out pacing, some of the clues will be revealed to Virginia as well as the audience, but cleverly they often just widen the mystery, puzzling the audience at the same time. Virginia and the audience will know more and more, but never enough to fully figure everything out (until the end, that is). The added “who-dunnit?”-elements keep the more traditional suspense-fans interested, chase scenes in the night and the presence of the “faceless killer” will keep the Giallo-fans at bay and there are a few “gorier”-shots (only a few this time) for the old horror-fans (it’s Fulci after all, so at least a few women have to end up dead one way or another). Visually the film is also interesting, since it makes good use of space during the interior-shots. The visions and reality blend in nicely. There are also a few intense scenes that really capture the audience. Add the very catchy soundtrack by the composing team Bixio (Franco Bixio) - Frizzi (Fabio Frizzi) - Tempera (Vince Tempera) - snippets also featured in the Tarantino’s “Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)” soundtrack, and you’ve a highly recommended Giallo. One thing still slightly bugs me; one of my favorite “Spaghetti western”-actor Gianni Garko (THE only real “Sartana”) is quite lame in his role, almost like walking his part through to get the paycheck at the end. His role is not very well written, but I still expected more.
Video
“Severin Films” presents the film in Anamorphic 1.85:1, fully uncut and with pretty good results. Black levels and colors are decent, sharpness is often good and the image is relatively clean, but there are still minor issues in various fronts. Along with grain, the image feels sometimes slightly “washed out” and some compression issues can be found in selected scenes. I also found minor “jerkiness” during the pans and longer shots with movement, which made me suspect of mediocre “PAL-to-NTSC”-conversion (I assume that the source being used is the same as with the R2 French CE). Minor “telecine wobbling” also occurred. These are still minor issues in the end of the day, since the fans have waited for a long time a proper English friendly version of the film. It has finally arrived and belongs in the collection of every Fulci and Giallo-fans. “Single Layer” disc is coded for “R1” and the film runs 97:20 minutes (NTSC). It has 19 chapters.
Audio
The film includes one audio track; English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono. There are no subtitles (only the French title card is translated with “forced” English subtitles). It’s now widely reported, that the review-copies include a mastering error in the audio, meaning that the levels are low (I had to turn to volume around -25db, instead of the usual -40db). The company corrected the sound problem in time and all the retail versions should include the track in the normal volume level (if you have sound issues, please contact the company). The track has still some hiss on the background, but fortunately the dialogue is quite clear (a bit muffled, though). English track should be a good choice for the film (since the lead actress Jennifer O'Neill is native English), but the lip synch on the dub is sometimes way off (it could be my imagination, but it might get better roughly in the middle the film?), which can be distracting. Granted, the “original audio”-statement is a very fine line due to the fact that all tracks were eventually dubbed, but sometimes it sounds like the English track has more lip synch issues than usual.
Extras
The main extra is “Voices From The Black” -featurette (27:24 minutes), which is in Italian (with optional English subtitles). Unusually, the featurette consist “only” (I admit, I’m spoiled) telephone interviews from co-writer Dardano Sacchetti, assistant editor Bruno Micheli, and costume designer Massimo Lentini. While I’m quite happy that this informative and long featurette is included for the fans, I’m slightly disappointed that you don’t actually “see” the people talking. It’s quite expensive for the small company to travel to Italy and track down several people (perhaps they didn’t have time anyway), so the decision is partly understandable. Sacchetti has always some firm opinions about Fulci and you’ll hear them in this featurette also. Sacchetti was asked to pen a screenplay from the novel “Terapia mortale” from author Vieri Razzini, since Fulci and co. had some problems with it. Finally it was indeed Sacchetti who figured how the end should play in the film and Fulci liked it. The “1st draft” was born and eventually the film follows around 90% of the first script version. Sacchetti also states that Fulci didn’t write a “single line” on the script that was filmed. He just appeared to the script meetings and eventually chose what he liked (and what he didn’t like). He didn’t really provide any of his own ideas. Sacchetti finds both good and bad sides of Fulci and like his “poetic vision” with the film and eventually also learned how to bring his own ideas to the director. At that time, Fulci was self-confident - almost arrogant, very aware of his technical skills. The downside was (based on Sacchetti) that he gave no real credits to his collaborators and sometimes even exploited them. At the same time Sacchetti admits that this is how many directors behaved during that time. Micheli reveals something about the editing process and based on him Fulci didn’t followed the editing very closely, since he trusted the editors and had already planned the sequences in his mind during filming. There were usually only minor corrections. Fulci also had great harmony with his trusted cinematographer Sergio Salvati. Since the “The Psychic” was a bit more complex in structure, it took around 30 days to finish the edit. Micheli calls Fulci a “friend” and “companion”, and misses him. Lentini has almost solely good memories of Fulci, calling him pleasant, cheerful and intelligent (which gives a good example of the two sides of Fulci - just compare to what Sacchetti says). Lentini also reveals that both Jennifer O'Neill and Marc Porel had some health issues during the shoot and it interrupted for a while because of this. Informative featurette (including sections of the film during the interviews). -US theatrical trailer named “The Psychic” (1:04 minutes, no subtitles) concludes the extras, even when it’s not listed on the back cover. Note, that the planned (and already announced) archive Lucio Fulci-interview was eventually dropped due the request of his daughter Antonella Fulci. Out of respect the interview was removed from the disc.
Overall
Lucio Fulci and Giallo was at least as successful combination than Fulci and zombies. Just in a different way. “The Psychic” (AKA “Seven Notes in Black”) is a good example of Fulci creating something that works in a many level (and almost without horror and gore), from psychological thriller to supernatural mystery. The DVD-presentation has some minor issues, but this is the film has been very high on the “wish list” of many fans, so I’m quite pleased. Others will be too, I’m sure. For more info, please visit the homepage of Severin Films.
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